Director: Sally Proctor
Community Producer: Michael McKeown
Community Producer: Diane Cairns
Writer: Joseph Houlders
Sound Design/Composer: James Cooper
Producer: Thomas Dixon
Assistant Producer: Lisa Kirkup
Community Representative: Helen Meszaros
Chef: Malaika Cunningham
Co-Creators & Performers: Diane Cairns, Anna Ceiplinska, Janice Gray, Lisa Kirkup, Pip Shaw, Stephen Martin, Michael McKeown, Helen Meszaros, Alistair Norton, Le Ann Proctor & Christine Savage
Special thanks to: Emma Waterford, Margaret Boulton, Steve Thompson, James Musgrave, Friends of Manor Park, Green Estate and all allotmenteers & community members.

This project was funded by Historic England’s Everyday Heritage Grant.

Of Pigeons and Peas was a storytelling project that explored the histories and futures of the Manor allotments. Our aim was to uncover and celebrate the working-class histories of allotments as sites of community-building, wellbeing, growing and connection with nature and animals.

Between May 2024 and October 2024, the Bare Project, in collaboration with The Manor and Castle Development Trust and community participants, co-designed workshops—making crafts with foraged materials, outdoor cooking, history walks, a talk on allotment history in Sheffield, metal detecting and allotment visits—to uncover local stories. These narratives prompted us to think about the future of these sites amid environmental change and rising food poverty in East Sheffield, whilst celebrating the area’s rich heritage.

The project culminated in a community celebration day: participants pressed apples, collected and arranged flowers for our feast, and sang with a local choir. We also performed “Of Pigeons and Peas”, a verbatim theatre piece that brought together many of the stories we collected during the project. You can listen to some of these stories below.