Contact Us

Address:
The Guildhall
Frankwell Quay
Shrewsbury
SY3 8HQ
 
Telephone:
01743 281000
 
email:

Cross Houses Allotment Project

This years project involved bringing a derelict piece of land back into use as a facility for wildlife conservation, environmental education, green waste recycling and community agriculture.

Objectives

  • The project aimed to safeguard an open space, which the community can utilise, for sustainable agriculture.
  • The project also aims to showcase the benefits of sustainable agriculture to the wider community and act as an educational facility to attract children and adults from all over.
  • The project also aims as core objective to benefit the wider environment and in so doing improve everyone's quality of life, now and for generations to come.

Background

  • The former hospital site in Cross Houses, near Shrewsbury was sold by the NHS for housing development. The site has an important heritage value relating to the architectural and historic interest of the buildings and land of the former hospital, its gardens and the adjacent 18th century Atcham Union Workhouse. To the north, the open countryside along the site boundary accommodates Workhouse Wood and to the north-west is bounded by a tree lined brook adjoining Anslow Wood.

Partners

The project is community led, and has been supported by Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council and Berrington Parish Council. Local housing developers Persimmon Homes, have helped a great deal and the project recently succeeded in securing funding from the National Lottery

The community gardens now provide:

  • Facilities for members of the local community to grow their own, reducing the need for people and goods to travel.
  • Facilitates to compost green waste arising from the adjacent housing development, which will reduce the amount of waste landfilled.
  • Community Orchards to encourage healthy lifestyles.
  • Fully restored archaeological features which have historical significance such as the former well for the Old Hospital workhouse.
  • Restoring the well also reduced demand for mains water, and the water will be pumped using solar power.
  • The relaying of historic hedges and the planting of local providence at the site are preserving old skills and enhancing wildlife habitat.
  • The site will be used for largely organic and less intense agriculture, which retains historic agricultural techniques for future generations.