Our LSA Building: A Part of Britain’s Rural Revolution

When we think of Britain’s interwar years, we often picture the roaring twenties or the austerity of the thirties, but amid these decades of change, one of the most quietly transformative social experiments took root in the English countryside: the Land Settlement Association (LSA). Founded in 1934, the LSA sought to solve two pressing problems: urban unemployment and rural depopulation, by turning jobless industrial workers into small-scale farmers. It was a bold, utopian vision of self-sufficiency, cooperation, and renewal that reshaped parts of rural England for decades.

The early 1930s were marked by deep economic depression. Britain’s industrial heartlands , from the coalfields of Durham to the shipyards of Glasgow, were hit hard by unemployment. At the same time, many rural areas were suffering depopulation and the decline of traditional agriculture. The government and several philanthropic organisations began to consider whether these two crises could, in some sense, solve each other.

The Land Settlement Association was established in 1934 under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Carnegie Trust, with support from private donors. Its founding principle was simple but radical: resettle unemployed men and their families from the industrial North onto smallholdings in the South and East of England, where they could work the land, produce food, and build a new life.

The LSA purchased large estates across the country, often former country houses and their lands, and divided them into smallholdings of around five to ten acres each. Each holding typically included a modest cottage, a few outbuildings, and enough land for fruit, vegetables, pigs, and poultry. The settlers, mostly ex-industrial workers with no farming experience, were given training, tools, and livestock.

Settlements were established in counties like Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Essex, Lincolnshire, and Hampshire. Each community had a central management committee, and production was run on cooperative lines: individual families farmed their own plots, but produce was marketed collectively. This allowed for economies of scale and mutual support.

Life on an LSA settlement was not easy. Many settlers struggled at first with the realities of manual agricultural labour. Yet the sense of purpose and community was strong. The Association’s ethos emphasised cooperation, thrift, and self-reliance.

The LSA encouraged a degree of communal living unusual for rural Britain. Settlers shared equipment and marketed their produce through central depots. Cooperative stores, social clubs, and educational activities fostered a genuine sense of solidarity. Many settlements became tight-knit, quasi-utopian villages where working together was not just practical, but moral.

The Second World War proved the value of the LSA. Britain’s urgent need for homegrown food made the smallholdings an important part of the national agricultural effort. Settlers expanded production, and many LSA communities flourished.

After the war, the government nationalised the scheme in 1948, bringing it under direct control of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. By the 1950s, the LSA had evolved into a network of over twenty settlements, with around 1,200 smallholdings covering more than 40,000 acres.

The postwar decades brought prosperity, but also change. As farming became more mechanised and market-driven, small-scale cooperative holdings struggled to compete. The younger generation often chose to seek work elsewhere. The LSA tried to adapt, promoting horticulture and intensive production of eggs, poultry, and fruit. Still, the model gradually fell out of step with modern agricultural economics.

In 1983, after nearly fifty years of operation, the government dissolved the Land Settlement Association. Many of its smallholdings were sold to tenants or on the open market. The cooperative experiment had ended, but its legacy lived on in the transformed rural communities it left behind.

Today, traces of the LSA can still be found in villages like Great Abington (Cambridgeshire), Sidlesham (Sussex), and Newbourne (Suffolk). Some of the old LSA cottages remain in use, their neat hedgerows and layout a silent echo of the interwar dream.

Historians often view the Land Settlement Association as one of Britain’s most humane and imaginative social experiments. It combined social welfare with rural regeneration, and while it was not without its difficulties, it gave thousands of working-class families a new start.

One of the most exciting projects coming out of our Museum are our plans to relocate and reinterpret a rare LSA building. Our building, from Sidlesham, West Sussex, was carefully dismantled and placed into storage decades ago. Today, it survives as a rare and meticulously recorded example of this pioneering social experiment.

Our goal is to use this building as a centre for learning and engagement, featuring:

• Heritage conservation and traditional skills training for volunteers, apprentices, and craftspeople.
• Community programmes involving refugee organisations, people with additional needs, and those in recovery from mental ill-health.
• Educational workshops and exhibitions exploring themes of land, livelihood, and belonging.
• Partnerships with local organisations such as Transition Chichester, Petworth Community Garden, and the South Downs National Park.

‘In terms of architecture,’ added Julian Bell, our Curator, ‘it’s not outstanding, but what it represents is the social history of the area south of Chichester, giving visitors an idea of why that area is now still a big market gardening area.’

Not only will this building be a valuable addition to the our collection, it will also be an opportunity to connect with, and explain, Chichester’s, and the nation’s, wider history. As Bill Martin, the man behind the research and creation of the LSA Sidlesham heritage trail and exhibitions, said, ‘When re-erected the house will not only celebrate Sidlesham LSA, but also all 20 LSAs across the UK as an important part of our national social history.’

As our director, Clare de Bathe has said, this endeavour has powerful modern resonances: ‘The LSA represents an extraordinary moment in British history, it’s a story of hope, community, and renewal in response to crisis, and its lessons are profoundly relevant today as we face similar challenges of our own.’

In an age once again focused on sustainability, community, and local food production, the LSA’s principles feel strikingly modern. Its story reminds us that social reform does not always have to come from grand urban projects or industrial growth, sometimes, it begins with a few acres of soil, a spade, and a shared vision of a better life.