10 rods
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Does anybody know why 10 (square?) rods is the standard unit of measurement for an average plot on an allotment? Why exactly 10 rods? For me, 10 rods is just about fine to feed two people, but when introduced eons ago families must have been much bigger, so 10 rods would have been thorougly inadequate. Also, why rods and not squre feet? I am 48 years old and was taught imperial measurements at primary school, but I am sure we never touched on rods! Also, aren't rods and poles the same thing? If so, why is that?
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Cider Boys
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It’s all very easy a rod ,pole and perch is the same distance.
There are 4 rods to the Chain.
1 chain is the length of a cricket pitch i.e. 22 yards
10 chains are 1 furlong
8 furlongs are 1 mile.
This represents a practical way of measuring land distances unlike the metric rubbish.
Barney
There are 4 rods to the Chain.
1 chain is the length of a cricket pitch i.e. 22 yards
10 chains are 1 furlong
8 furlongs are 1 mile.
This represents a practical way of measuring land distances unlike the metric rubbish.
Barney
1 rod also known as pole or perch = 30.25 square yards.
Beryl.
Beryl.
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Cider Boys
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Hello Beryl
A rod, pole or perch is a unit of length not an area. It was originally loosely based on the length of a rod, pole or perch (meaning a staff) etc needed to drive the oxen when ploughing. These measurements were later standardised by Edmund Gunter in 1607.
A rod is equal to 5.5 yards however.
These old measurements were based on practical use, for example when measuring a horse it is measured in hands (standardised to 4 inches)
A furlong was derived from a ‘furrow long’ the usual length after which the ploughman would rest the draught animals.
Incidentally 1chain X 1 furlong = 1 acre
Perhaps I should get a life!
Barney
A rod, pole or perch is a unit of length not an area. It was originally loosely based on the length of a rod, pole or perch (meaning a staff) etc needed to drive the oxen when ploughing. These measurements were later standardised by Edmund Gunter in 1607.
A rod is equal to 5.5 yards however.
These old measurements were based on practical use, for example when measuring a horse it is measured in hands (standardised to 4 inches)
A furlong was derived from a ‘furrow long’ the usual length after which the ploughman would rest the draught animals.
Incidentally 1chain X 1 furlong = 1 acre
Perhaps I should get a life!
Barney
Thank's for that info Barney.
The measurement I gave is what is given out by our local Council. They seem to think most people will understand square yards better.
Having been brought up in 'old money' it is still all a bit confusing to me, however a 10 rod plot is still quite enough for most people.
I am carrying on with 25.
Regards
Beryl.
The measurement I gave is what is given out by our local Council. They seem to think most people will understand square yards better.
Having been brought up in 'old money' it is still all a bit confusing to me, however a 10 rod plot is still quite enough for most people.
I am carrying on with 25.
Regards
Beryl.
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peter
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I did quite a bit of research on this subject earler in the year. 
A rod is used as a measure of area as Baryl says, 30 sq yards or 25 square metres, take your pick. The only place the measure is still used is on allotments and it is used interchangeably with pole and perch.
Perhaps we should go onto the "hide" as an even more archaic measure?
In practice the rough-n-ready of ten rod allotment is ten paces by thirty paces for me.
A rod is used as a measure of area as Baryl says, 30 sq yards or 25 square metres, take your pick. The only place the measure is still used is on allotments and it is used interchangeably with pole and perch.
Perhaps we should go onto the "hide" as an even more archaic measure?
In practice the rough-n-ready of ten rod allotment is ten paces by thirty paces for me.
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Hi Barry,
I researched this earlier on in the year but why it seems to be 10 Rods I have no actual idea. They appear to have increased in size from the original meaning which was 8 Rods. They are referred to as Rods but they are in fact Square Rods and Beryl was correct. It still fits into the Acre and there are now 16 to the Acre instead of the original 20.
JB.
The Allotment.
As far as I can ascertain an Allotment was a patch of ground that went with a tied cottage between Farmer and employee. Nowadays it has changed but not all that much when you consider that the local authorities own the vast majority of the allotment sites with several private sites dotted about and they have taken the part that originally was the Farmers.
All land measurements were base on the Surveyors Chain until the coming of the laser beam and land is now mostly measured with this modern equipment.
The original allotment was 1/20th of an acre which is 66ft x 33ft with one footpath and one sidepath and these paths were calculated at 3ft so the growing area was 63ft x30ft.
The Surveyors Chain is composed thus;
1 Link = 7.92 inches,
25 Links = 1 Rod
1 Rod = 198 inches = 16.5 ft.
4 Rods = 100 Links = 1 Chain.
1 Chain = 66ft = 22yds (length of a Cricket Pitch)
10 Chains = 1 Furlong = 220yds
8 Furlongs = 1 Mile.
So an allotment 4 rods long and two Rods wide if calculated = 8sq Rods = 1/20th of and Acre.
To prove that 66ft x 33ft x 20 = 43560 square ft. 43560 square ft = 1 Acre.
43560 Divided by 9 = 4840 sq. yds which is more easily recognisable to some.
So the original Allotment was 8 square Rods and this is the way that the Rod came about with modern Allotments as a blast from the past. It would appear that very few Allotments are actually the size they were originally.
I researched this earlier on in the year but why it seems to be 10 Rods I have no actual idea. They appear to have increased in size from the original meaning which was 8 Rods. They are referred to as Rods but they are in fact Square Rods and Beryl was correct. It still fits into the Acre and there are now 16 to the Acre instead of the original 20.
JB.
The Allotment.
As far as I can ascertain an Allotment was a patch of ground that went with a tied cottage between Farmer and employee. Nowadays it has changed but not all that much when you consider that the local authorities own the vast majority of the allotment sites with several private sites dotted about and they have taken the part that originally was the Farmers.
All land measurements were base on the Surveyors Chain until the coming of the laser beam and land is now mostly measured with this modern equipment.
The original allotment was 1/20th of an acre which is 66ft x 33ft with one footpath and one sidepath and these paths were calculated at 3ft so the growing area was 63ft x30ft.
The Surveyors Chain is composed thus;
1 Link = 7.92 inches,
25 Links = 1 Rod
1 Rod = 198 inches = 16.5 ft.
4 Rods = 100 Links = 1 Chain.
1 Chain = 66ft = 22yds (length of a Cricket Pitch)
10 Chains = 1 Furlong = 220yds
8 Furlongs = 1 Mile.
So an allotment 4 rods long and two Rods wide if calculated = 8sq Rods = 1/20th of and Acre.
To prove that 66ft x 33ft x 20 = 43560 square ft. 43560 square ft = 1 Acre.
43560 Divided by 9 = 4840 sq. yds which is more easily recognisable to some.
So the original Allotment was 8 square Rods and this is the way that the Rod came about with modern Allotments as a blast from the past. It would appear that very few Allotments are actually the size they were originally.
Given that allotments were originally a necessity in that if you didn't grow your own food you would probably have gone hungry, what on earth decided our ancestors that, if JB is correct, just 8 rods was enough for one person? Bizarely, with modern restrictions on available time, a 10 rod plot is often too big for most people to manage comfortably. I am currently moving from a 450 sq m double plot to an even bigger one, but I shan't need it all, because I simply couldn't store all the produce!!!
There isn't a one size fits all here. Over my 22 years of allotmenting I went from one to 4 and then to less than 2, finally I uprooted and bought my own ground out in the styx as thay say, I can work as much as I like but the area worked is different each season.
Getting back to Johnboys figures
An acre is thus 20x8 = 160 square rods
So you could alternatively divide it into 16 plots of 10 rods or 20 plots of 8 rods.Maybe the possibilities of fitting either into available shapes of land had something to do with the choice. The more you divide it up the more uncultivated land there is in the form of paths and boundaries.
Allan
Getting back to Johnboys figures
An acre is thus 20x8 = 160 square rods
So you could alternatively divide it into 16 plots of 10 rods or 20 plots of 8 rods.Maybe the possibilities of fitting either into available shapes of land had something to do with the choice. The more you divide it up the more uncultivated land there is in the form of paths and boundaries.
Allan
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Chantal
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Eerm, I think that should be "out in the sticks" Allan. Styx is the river that separates Earth from Hades and forms the fifth circle of Hell. 
Unless you're trying to tell us something here.
Unless you're trying to tell us something here.Chantal
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I know this corner of the earth, it smiles for me...
Hi Barry,
Great care was taken when I researched the data that I have posted. You talk of square metres which do not feature anywhere in the history of allotments.
How 10 rods came about is anybodies guess but 8 rods is mathematically sound for the period in which allotments came about. I have not worked it out but the Metric System may be more conducive to 10 rods.
I give this as a possible explanation without any facts to back it up.
JB.
Great care was taken when I researched the data that I have posted. You talk of square metres which do not feature anywhere in the history of allotments.
How 10 rods came about is anybodies guess but 8 rods is mathematically sound for the period in which allotments came about. I have not worked it out but the Metric System may be more conducive to 10 rods.
I give this as a possible explanation without any facts to back it up.
JB.
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Colin Miles
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If the allotments I was familiar with in Hemel Hempstead are anything to go by many plots will differ, often substantially, from the standard 10 or 8 rods. The shape of the allotment itself was often the main contributory factor for this. The 10 by 30 paces is a good measure.
Here in Kent, 10 rods does appear to be the standard measurement, although, as several people have commented, the shape of the actual allotment site seems to dictate the actual size of each plot. Interestingly, on the new site where I am now working, there are triangular-shaped areas which, despite not being worked nowadays, were once always cultivated. I think we forget that, while most of us nowadays cultivate plots for pleasure, way back yonder you simply had to have an allotment if you wanted to grow food for your family!
PS. I get really fed up thesedays with 'poor' families who live near allotments, don't work, complain they have no money, but have the opportunity to grow their own right on their own doorsteps. Is there anyone out there old enough to remember a time when it was quite normal to have an allotment, but when there were still families who refused to take up the challenge even though they needed the extra food this would give them? In other words, were there still people even back then who wanted others to provide for them, because they were too lazy to do it themselves?
PS. I get really fed up thesedays with 'poor' families who live near allotments, don't work, complain they have no money, but have the opportunity to grow their own right on their own doorsteps. Is there anyone out there old enough to remember a time when it was quite normal to have an allotment, but when there were still families who refused to take up the challenge even though they needed the extra food this would give them? In other words, were there still people even back then who wanted others to provide for them, because they were too lazy to do it themselves?
Errrhmmmm, yes I am old enough to remember when allotments where the norm. Having been brought up in the country with a fairly large garden put down to veggies, Dad still shared an allotment with his brother. My Grandad being a gardener at a big house also had a large garden and kept us supplied with fruit and eggs.
During the war the front garden was turned over to veg too.
There were no freezers in those days so veggies were grown all year round, bottling, salting etc. storing, even nuts in tins in the garden for Christmas.
So easy these days to pop to the supermarket if you run out.
Happy Days!!! yes they were.
Beryl.
During the war the front garden was turned over to veg too.
There were no freezers in those days so veggies were grown all year round, bottling, salting etc. storing, even nuts in tins in the garden for Christmas.
So easy these days to pop to the supermarket if you run out.
Happy Days!!! yes they were.
Beryl.
Hi Barry,
I grew up in a very small village where apart from the Blacksmith and Assistants everybody was involved in Farming. The entire village apart from just a few "Big Houses" the rest were all tied cottages owned by the farming community. They all had a apportionment as with most of the cottages had very tiny front gardens and virtually no back garden.
There were 3 said apportionment areas and all the married farmhands had an allotment. They were areas of great activity until it was dark and then everybody adjourned to the pub for a pint or two and then off home to bed for a 5.00am rise in the morning.
Information and methods were shared and some of the results were absolutely fantastic. I can well remember these before WW2 and it was that that enthused me to have my own allotment in my Grandfathers orchard when I was 13. My Grandfather staked out what I could have and I moved the stakes another 10ft and then another 10ft thinking he would never take any notice and about a month later He said "that's quite far enough now!" I had been helping my Grandfather, who was a Stock Breeder of really fine Hereford Cattle but his one passion apart from his cattle was the growing of fine vegetables and I meaningfully helped him from the age of 6. He was a total mine of information which I can remember him even today telling me. He would tell me and always give me the reason why. His methods were very simple as are mine today. Sadly the old apportionment's are now all new housing estates and allotments are no longer available in that village.
I grew up in a very small village where apart from the Blacksmith and Assistants everybody was involved in Farming. The entire village apart from just a few "Big Houses" the rest were all tied cottages owned by the farming community. They all had a apportionment as with most of the cottages had very tiny front gardens and virtually no back garden.
There were 3 said apportionment areas and all the married farmhands had an allotment. They were areas of great activity until it was dark and then everybody adjourned to the pub for a pint or two and then off home to bed for a 5.00am rise in the morning.
Information and methods were shared and some of the results were absolutely fantastic. I can well remember these before WW2 and it was that that enthused me to have my own allotment in my Grandfathers orchard when I was 13. My Grandfather staked out what I could have and I moved the stakes another 10ft and then another 10ft thinking he would never take any notice and about a month later He said "that's quite far enough now!" I had been helping my Grandfather, who was a Stock Breeder of really fine Hereford Cattle but his one passion apart from his cattle was the growing of fine vegetables and I meaningfully helped him from the age of 6. He was a total mine of information which I can remember him even today telling me. He would tell me and always give me the reason why. His methods were very simple as are mine today. Sadly the old apportionment's are now all new housing estates and allotments are no longer available in that village.