diff --git a/src/libexpr/eval.cc b/src/libexpr/eval.cc
index 8cf4d9549..a95726f5f 100644
--- a/src/libexpr/eval.cc
+++ b/src/libexpr/eval.cc
@@ -821,8 +821,23 @@ inline Value * EvalState::lookupVar(Env * env, const ExprVar & var, bool noEval)
 
 Value * EvalState::allocValue()
 {
+    /* We use the boehm batch allocator to speed up allocations of Values (of which there are many).
+       GC_malloc_many returns a linked list of objects of the given size, where the first word
+       of each object is also the pointer to the next object in the list. This also means that we
+       have to explicitly clear the first word of every object we take. */
+    if (!valueAllocCache) {
+        valueAllocCache = GC_malloc_many(sizeof(Value));
+        if (!valueAllocCache) throw std::bad_alloc();
+    }
+
+    /* GC_NEXT is a convenience macro for accessing the first word of an object.
+       Take the first list item, advance the list to the next item, and clear the next pointer. */
+    void * p = valueAllocCache;
+    GC_PTR_STORE_AND_DIRTY(&valueAllocCache, GC_NEXT(p));
+    GC_NEXT(p) = nullptr;
+
     nrValues++;
-    auto v = (Value *) allocBytes(sizeof(Value));
+    auto v = (Value *) p;
     return v;
 }
 
diff --git a/src/libexpr/eval.hh b/src/libexpr/eval.hh
index 1aab8e166..cc63294c6 100644
--- a/src/libexpr/eval.hh
+++ b/src/libexpr/eval.hh
@@ -133,6 +133,9 @@ private:
     /* Cache used by prim_match(). */
     std::shared_ptr<RegexCache> regexCache;
 
+    /* Allocation cache for GC'd Value objects. */
+    void * valueAllocCache = nullptr;
+
 public:
 
     EvalState(