Introduction

The allotments lie north of The Moor in Carlton, Bedfordshire. There have been other allotment plots in the village at various times, two of which were administered by the Parish Council, and one by the former Rural District Council, but all of these have now been closed down. The historical value of the rent book lies chiefly in its lists of local people who rented the allotments in specific years. It also contains occasional notes about when tenants died or left the village.

The document here contains scanned copies of all those pages in the church allotment rent book which contain significant information – several pages were left blank, and two leaves of the book were cut out for some reason. They lay between the entries for 1949 and 1951, very near the end of the book, and may have been used in earlier years for miscellaneous notes. The last page of all, headed “1952”, contains a few names and numbers but is obviously not a complete record of rentals for that year.

CLICK HERE or on the image opposite to view or download the full text. This includes a more complete introduction, with biographical notes on the six clergymen who acted as rent collectors over a sixty-year period.