"David WE Roberts" wrote in message
...
Just received a call from a nice lady in the local council to tell me I
have a choice of two allotments.

They are '5 rod' allotments (also known locally as half plots) but I
haven't worked out the square footage yet.
The council are currently splitting full plots down when they come
available to cut down the waiting list.
I have been on the list for about a year.

Found this on the Internet:-

quote

Plot Sizes



Plot sizes are measured in rods, an old Anglo-Saxon unit so-called because
it was the length of the rod used to control a team of oxen. A rod is 5.5
yards (5.03 metres).



There are 4 rods in a chain, that is 22 yards (20.12 metres).



There are 10 chains in a furlong and 8 furlongs in a mile. So a mile is 80 x
22 = 1760 yards (1609.3 metres).



An acre is the area of land that could be ploughed in a day, being a furrow
long (furlong) and a chain wide, or 160 square rods, which is 4840 sq yards
(4048 sq metres). A hectare is 10,000 sq metres so an acre is 0.4 of a
hectare.



Plots sizes are usually 5 rods or 10 rods. A 10 rod allotment is actually 10
square rods in area, that is 10 x 5.5 x 5.5 = 302.5 sq yards (253 sq
metres).



In metric units, a 10 rod allotment is one fortieth of a hecta in
imperial units it is one sixteenth of an acre.

unquote/


Bill