In the recession that followed the banking crash in 2008, people were attracted to growing their own food and, by 2011, more than a thousand were on the waiting list for one of Plymouth’s 1394 allotment plots.
Plymouth City Council started to bring redundant plots back into use and, in 2014, approved plans to extend Swarthmore Allotments into the lower field where there had been allotments previously although no longer used.
Below the new allotments, teams working with the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers made a new path to link Holdsworth Street with the park entrance by Ford Park Cemetery and this was completed in 2015.
In 2016, the 50 new plots on Swarthmore Lower Field started to be brought into use and a community orchard was planted in vacant ground midway along the new path, which has become known as Orchard Path.
Near the Ford Park Cemetery entrance in 2020 
On Orchard Path with allotments fence on the left 
View towards Holdsworth Street with allotments fence on the right 
The community orchard in 2020 
Breaking ground for the new path in 2015 
Path under construction 2015 
Path under construction 2015 
Path under construction with ground for new allotments on the left 
Path under construction 2015 
Newly completed 2015 
Newly completed 2015
