‘He should be a custodian’: London allotment holders lament duke’s bid to build flats

Eva (six) and her brother Axl (four) get to work in the family’s Park Road allotment along with Nya (two, in the background), and their mother, Jen Langley. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

For nearly four decades Grace Gray has tended to her plot at the Park Road allotments in Isleworth, west London.

Each day she travels a mile from her home to the three-acre piece of land. She studies its nature – the loss of pollinators, the glut of apples and the influx of green and spotted woodpeckers – finding pleasure in watching the land, and the people who care for it, grow.