Many record collections are too small and niche to attract the interest of the large genealogy companies, but none-the-less valuable. Often you’ll find them in the UK at local archives, county record offices and museums. It’s good practice to check those where you have ancestry periodically.
A recent example, documented in an 18 August blog post, is from the Essex Record Office. The Borough of Saffron Walden records contain insight into allotments in the 1830s and 1840s. Surviving records include committee minutes (D/B 2/PAR9/5 and D/B 2/PAR9/6), allotment rent accounts which record the names of people cultivating plots (D/B 2/BRL5/71), and maps of the fields with allotment plots marked out and numbered so they can be linked to the rent accounts, allowing individual plot holders to be identified (D/B 2/BRL5/72). The minutes also contain maps of the allotments and have been digitised so can be viewed on Essex Archives Online.