Window to the Past – Market Gardening Photos
- 19th April 2020
Archives are only as detailed as the records they contain. In the case of market gardening, integral to the Vale of Evesham for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, there is surprisingly little. Yet records and photographs are out there in family collections, so as part of the Market Gardening Heritage project we’ve been adding to the county archives to preserve a record for future generations.
An especially interesting collection of photos that we’ve been fortunate to digitally copy is from the Jinks family in Cleeve Prior, east of Evesham. Sara English kindly shared her family album, which includes many wonderful photos of the market gardening ground in Froglands, Cleeve Prior that her parents, John and Kitty Jinks, worked. Working photos are few and far between, as in the days before digital and phone cameras, photographs were often reserved for formal or special occasions rather than documenting the everyday.
Take a look at the sneak preview below. These fantastic photos, along with other images and information recorded throughout the project, will form the basis of an exhibition this autumn and resource packs for local school and reminiscence work, as well as being added to Worcestershire Archives held here at The Hive in Worcester.
Left: Pea picking – many local women helped with harvesting and the family was a major employer in the village. Right: The family ran a pig club during the war, where members contributed towards the rearing of a piglet in return for a share of meat. The Jink’s pig club continued after the war.
Lorry loaded for deliveries around Warwick and Leamington, which went twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. Fred Jinks & Son supplied all the veg for Burgis & Colbourne, a grocery and general store in Leamington Spa.
Left: Digging a trench for irrigation pipes down steep hill to River Avon, to enable the ground to be watered with aid of a pumphouse by the river. Right: Extra help was needed by most fulltime market gardeners, especially during harvest season. Jack, photographed above, stopped by the ground one day looking for work and stayed for over 10 years. It was relatively common for seasonal workers to be given accommodation on the land, but in the aftermath of WWI and WWII (and lack of understanding about PTSD) some veterans who found employment in market gardening converted sheds on the ground into small dwellings.
Many thanks to everyone who has lent images and given information to the project. Due to an internal digitisation service, with high spec cameras and knowledgeable staff, we’ve been able to take high resolution copies then return valuable family photos. Being part of the Archive & Archaeology Service, our digitisation team are used to handling a variety of photo and document formats, in differing states of preservation, and creating the best quality copies to preserve a record for the future.
Keep an eye on the project’s home page for details of the final exhibition in autumn 2020, along with an Open Day for three restored sites provisionally planned for September: www.explorethepast.co.uk/project/market-gardening-heritage
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