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Cavendish Allotments is located between the A316, Hill View Road, Cole Park Road and the River Crane in St Margarets. The allotment is owned by the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, but is self run by the members.

Waiting list - CLOSED

Our waiting is managed by Richmond Council and list is closed for the foreseeable future as we have approximately seven years of people on the list.

If you need to get in touch with the Council, please see the Council’s webpage on Allotments, or use the following contact information.

Richmond Council Allotments Officer contact details

The Allotments Officer
London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
Civic Centre
York Street
Twickenham
TW1 3BZ

• Telephone: 020 8831 6110
• Email: allotments@richmond.gov.uk

Cavendish Allotment contact details

If you need to get in touch with the the Cavendish Allotment Committee, we have an answer phone at: 07505 668268. We will attempt to respond to all calls within 48 hours. You can also email us at enquiries@cavendish-allotments.org.uk.

This is the 2011 Cavendish Allotment Committee. Please feel free to talk to any one of us if you have any questions or concerns. Also, this year, we have a mobile phone you can text or call as well. We will attempt to respond to all calls within 48 hours. Here is the number:

07505 668268

You can also email us at enquiries@cavendish-allotments.org.uk.

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As well as its courses for professionals, Kew also runs short courses for amateurs. See www.kew.org.uk for more information.

Since last autumn, this has been closed. It was always intended to take only vegetative waste which would eventually rot down to make compost. However, it was mistreated by a few who dumped rubbish there. So, last October, a few committee members, volunteers and a paid helper cleared away a huge amount of non-compostable waste, put covers over everything and left it to do its own thing. Soon, it is hoped some bays will be opened so holders can come and take away compost.

There are now to be more guidelines and information given to plot-holders about how to compost, both in this area and on their own plots. So, when the bays are open again, we very much hope that everyone will respect the intention to create compost, not a mess!

Paul and others have worked hard to put up the donated greenhouse. This is intended for communal use, with 8 bays on upper and lower staging, to be booked for a season at a time at a small charge, according to the guidelines and plan posted on the boards.

While digging out well-rotted compost from one of the communal composting bays this summer, we came across some enormous grubs. Three inches long, with white bodies and orange heads they were buried deep within the compost. A knowledgeable member of the committee recognized them as larvae of the stag beetle, a globally threatened species, protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. These magnificent beetles are in serious decline and SW London is one of the few UK areas in which they are now found.

We had hoped to open the bays for both depositing green waste and collecting compost from the base. However, as we started to prepare for this, it was found there is a population of stag beetles living there. (A few plot-holders have also found them on their plots.) These are a protected species so we have moved them elsewhere for their protection. (See the item below on the beetles.). So the bays may not open again until next year. When they do, please remember that the area is only for compostable green waste that you cannot deal with on your own plot. We have prepared guidelines and notices to remind everyone of how to treat this area.

You may not have heard of him but gardeners owe a lot to the Reverend Stephen Hales. He is the father of plant physiology, and modern biology is built on many of his observations and experiments on living plants. Born in 1677, he was the curate of Teddington Church from 1709 to his death in 1761. Among his many discoveries he found that sap flows from roots to leaves (i.e., transpiration) and that leaves need light to grow and they absorb air (i.e., photosynthesis). His paper in 1719 to the Royal Society was ‘Upon the Effect of ye Sun’s warmth on raising ye Sap in trees’. Until his work on measuring sap pressure, velocity and circulation (inventing a trough to collect gases and gauges to measure pressure), it was thought that sap circulation was similar to that of blood in the body.