You can tour our award Our Open Day is usually in August Cripley Meadow on the last Sunday of National winning plots & the Cripley Allotments Island Orchard on Open Days Allotment Week so do Come and www.cripleymeadow.org.uk visit Cripley Island Orchard The orchard was established by our If you are interested in becoming a member, members with funding from the Big Lottery Healthy, productive leisure time! please get in touch and we will arrange a 2009-2011 We have planted over 90 visit and a plot as soon as we can. Generally heritage apple trees. Our members are we find we can accommodate new members responsible for maintaining the island and within a season. All new members have to do the site by contributing 3 hours site work per a tour of the site before they can be offered member per year or by making a £15 a plot. We do our best to keep our waiting donation list down by developing communal plots.
Contact: [email protected] www.cripleymeadow.org.uk
Come and see a wide range of plots Cripley Meadow Allotment Association has with a diversity of approaches to growing provided local people with space to grow fruit, flowers, vegetables, and supporting their own vegetables, fruit and flowers since insects, and birds. approximately 1891. Large parts of the original site were The benefits of allotments are neglected for many years in the last decades Located at the end of Walton Well Road, • providing a sustainable food supply of the 20thC, but an ambitious reclamation Oxford and ticketed parking is available • healthy activity for people of all ages project was begun by the members in 2005. adjacent to the site. To access the site, • fostering communities and cohesiveness follow the bicycle path through the parking • acting as an educational resource What was once a site mostly overgrown and lot and over the bridge. • providing access to nature and acting as strewn with rubbish is now a thriving and a resource for biodiversity active site with over 270 members and 180 • giving open spaces for local communities plots ranging in size from 1 to 12 poles*. * A • reducing carbon emissions through “pole” is an ancient measurement of length from the avoiding the long-distance transport of back of a plough to the nose of an ox. food
2012 Reclaiming the South Field In July As usual the wood chip was recycled on site for The first members 2010 we started clearing the south field. This use by members. Lottery funding enabled us to turned the first sod at was funded by Allotment grant money from move the existing site fencing, provided by the beginning of Oxford city Council and the association’s OCC in 2007, to enclose the reclaimed December 2011. reclamation funding. We knew opening the allotment land. The University of Oxford, south field would require us to move the which is building Tony Clear, our fencing and the cost of this was out of our student flats Vice Chair, range. immediately adjacent organised the to our allotment site, installation of the In September 2011 we have badger proofed new association were awarded £10,000 this to protect shed and he and National Lottery funding. adjacent badger setts and the allotments. Jeremy Hyde ““. The group will use the funding to extend the installed the large water butt. These were allotment stet, purchase a shed, rainwater tank and A badger sett was relocated on Cripley Meadow financed by Lottery funding. lay site access tracks. This will provide an extra 25 by previous plots and enhanced facilities for the local embankment We have community ” Alison, our treasurer, made the bid and building in remade and managed the finances and reporting. 2001. This new grassed the In October a arrangement paths around Digger arrived to allows the the new field. remove rubble badgers access The south field and lay new path, north and south without using the allotment. has seen a followed by OCC’s We have given over an acre of allotment land rapid tree team to to the badgers. Natural England has been transformation in spite of the unseasonal pollard willow involved in this project and recognises this weather and already has some plots that are along our western work has not harmed the badger sett. We aim planted with a diverse range of crops, flowers boundary. Oxford to try to co –exist whilst ensuring the land is and fruit. City Council used as its purpose to enable members to In April 2012 we planted undertook this cultivate fruit and 4 alder trees on the work which was vegetables. boundary spit we call paid for by the Existing members on Fiddlers Bow across from association with working parties helped the tow path. This will matched funding from Oxford City Council clear the ground, enhance bio diversity. We Allotment Grant fund. measure and stake the new plots. await siskins!