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A\xa0Hidden Kitchens story about London\u2019s long tradition of urban garden allotments \u2014 and the story of Manor Garden Allotments,\xa0a\xa0100 year old community, that found itself in the path of London\u2019s 2012 Olympics.

London\u2019s \u201callotment\u201d gardens are an unusual and vibrant system of community gardens across the entire city. Tended by immigrants, retirees, chefs and fans of fresh food, the allotments make up a kitchen community like no other.

Wedged between buildings, planted in abandoned open spaces and carved into hillsides, these community plots of open space began to be reserved for neighborhood cultivation with the industrialization of England in the 1860s, when rural people poured into the city.

The allotments flourished with Britain\u2019s \u201cDig for Victory\u201d movement of World War II, an effort to feed the starving population of London during the war. And today, they are exploding with the organic gardening and \u201cgood food\u201d movements, and efforts to food self-sufficiency sweeping the country.

For about 20 years, retiree Charlie Gregory has\xa0cultivated\xa0his plot at Fitzroy Park Allotment in Hampstead Heath, next to hipster artists and an immigrant couple with three Yorkies.\xa0There are apple trees, black currant bushes, blueberries, onions and shallots.

\u201cEverybody knows everybody,\u201d Gregory said. \u201cI\u2019m a bachelor myself. I\u2019m 78 now, and I\u2019m keeping on the go. It\u2019s not expensive. For 27 pounds a year, you\u2019ve got the space of land, you know, and this beautiful spot. You want to keep fit and live to a good old age? Get an allotment!\u201d

London chef Oliver Rowe gets almost all his food from farmers and producers working within the radius of the city\u2019s train system. In the kitchen of\xa0Konstam at the Prince Albert, his restaurant in Kings Cross, Rowe\u2019s bread is made of wheat that is grown, milled and baked within 20 miles. The walls of his caf\xe9 are lined with jars of Dartford broad beans, sloe gin berries and sweet squash that he canned last year.

John Kelly, former publisher of\xa0Prospect\xa0magazine, who\xa0once had a plot in north London said that allotments started in the 19th century and were sparked by philanthropy and health concerns.

\u201cSo as people fled from agrarian poverty into working in factories, land was given to the city in perpetuity for people to cultivate vegetables,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cThe allotment boom really happened in 1940s, 1950s.\u201d

\u201cThere were most definitely different communities \u2026 The Italian guy opposite me who was fixated on growing Tuscan grapes for wine. And the Irish were there really just to dig\u2026 There were posh English ladies creating conceptual art, so you\u2019d see these sort of scarecrows in hand-me-down Versace.\u201d

Talking to people, one place kept coming up:\xa0Manor Garden Allotments, a small patch of land in the heart of working-class east London. It is more than 100 years old.

\u201cYou\u2019d go past rambling old factories, down a little alleyway, behind the bus depot, lots of rubbish everywhere,\u201d said Julie Sumner, a Manor allotment holder and organizer. But anyone opening a gate to see the River Lea, she said, would find a different scene.

Hassan Ali, a Turkish Cypriot who is a retired mechanic, had an allotment at Manor Garden for almost 20 years. \u201cThat place, I tell you, is a dream place \u2014 like we were living in heaven,\u201d Ali said.

\u201cI always cook every day something. My friend Reggie, 17 years I know him. Every day we together. And he brings something from his garden, and I bring something, and we cook and eat there, me and Reg.\u201d

But in October 2007,\xa0Manor Garden Allotments\xa0was bulldozed to make way for a path and landscaping for the 2012 Olympic Games. The loss of the\xa0Manor Garden Allotments\xa0to the Olympics construction came despite protests and calls for preserving the area.

Today, the Manor Garden Allotment community has been split and relocated into two allotments. One is located in Marsh Lane, or the \u201cSwamp\u201d that\xa0was supposed to be a temporary home until after the Olympics. And the other new Allotment site opened in January 2016 at Pudding Mill Lane, Stratford in the heart of East London. Despite set backs and disputes, the allotment community continues on.

Throughout London, these garden allotments\xa0bridge many religious and cultural divides. With daily rituals of tea and traditional grilling of meats in garden sheds and outdoor kitchens \u2014 families come together in ways that defy the divided times in which we live.

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