Moulsecoomb Estate

Moulsecoomb Estate allotments
Photo by Simon Tobitt

The Moulsecoomb Estate allotment site is a large site, located on a hillside with the Avenue and Moulsecoomb to the north and the Lewes Road and Brighton University below to the west. The main entrance is at the junction of Natal Road and Nesbitt Road. The City Council lists 159 plots at this site.

Barry Sharp on this sloped site
“The raised beds do help a lot, because they do hold the moisture more. I’ve got very, very dry soil in the allotment. I still got a slight slant on it, ’cause they’re all going down hill. What I’ve done is, I raised them [the beds] all up, so they’re all practically level now. So when it rains, the rain doesn’t run down and away, it literally sits on the actual garden bed itself.”

Things are hotting up
“I’ve noticed over the last couple of years that the summer times are getting very, very dry. We’re not having so much rain now, so that means I have to go up there every evening to water. This year there’s been half a dozen occasions where we’ve had to not water, we’ve been told we can’t use hoses, so we have to go around with watering cans. The summers are getting hotter and drier. Winters, we don’t get so much snow in Brighton as what we did when I was a young boy. Probably better if we didn’t have so much ice and snow, because the winter produce grows a lot better and quicker.”

Barry on the allotment community
“When I’m up there, you see everybody’s working hard, you don’t talk a lot to other people when you’re working. I’m not a mingler. Everybody in the Moulsecoomb allotment, they’re all good-natured. Everyone says ‘ello to each other, everyone waves to each other when they go past in their cars. They’re a good bunch up there. We all help each other out. Being in the building trade, if I have fencing left over, or timber left over from a job, I take it up there. If I can’t make use of it then they will make use of it. I just pile it down the bottom of the allotments and people just come along and help themselves.”

Barry Sharp was the 2005 winner of Brighton & Hove City Council’s ‘Best New Allotment Holder’ and ‘Allotment Coronation Bowl’. Barry runs a building company, and lives with his wife and children in Moulsecoomb.

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