Welcome!
Take a trip down memory lane with photos and oral history clips of market gardening in the Vale of Evesham. To explore a topic, click on that heading and the box will expand.
This reminiscence pack has been created as part of the Market Gardening Heritage project by Worcestershire Archive & Archaeology Service and partners, with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
It is designed for use by individuals or groups to explore the long history of fruit, vegetable, herbs and flower growing around Evesham, Pershore and surrounding villages. Whilst focused on the Vale’s market gardening history, it can be used to evoke recollections of numerous broad topics, such as food, childhood, gardening, sheds, shopping, travel, countryside and the Vale of Evesham.
For an overview of market gardening, see the online exhibition ‘Grown in the Vale‘.
Range of crops
Listen below to Reg, Mike and Andrew talking about the astonishing variety of crops grown in the Vale of Evesham.
Fruit
Today’s annual blossom trail is a small reminder of the extent of the fruit orchards in the Vale of Evesham. The area was particularly famous for its plums, but also its cherries and apples. We’ve collected memories of those that grew, minded, picked and distributed the fruit. Here are the thoughts of Geoff, Bob and Ron.
Mother and son picking plums in the 1950s (credit: M. Izod)
Asparagus
The Vale of Evesham has always been renowned for its asparagus. Cutting, tying, packing and displaying asparagus was quite an art. Here are the recollections of Betty, Andrew, Karen and Geoff.
Bundling asparagus for the Littleton & Badsey Growers (credit: LBG)
Changes over time
Click on the side arrows to scroll left and right through the photos.
Fruit and veg picked in the Vale of Evesham one day could be sold in Glasgow, Southampton or London the next. Growers primarily sold through local auctions or wholesale markets in towns across the country. However, some sold direct to greengrocers and local jam or canning factories.
Pershore Market
‘This area produced veg and fruit as good as anywhere else in the country’, says Francis Roberts, who recalls his dad taking produce from growers in Lower Moor to Pershore Market on his horse and dray.
Evesham Central Market
Geoff worked all his life in the market gardening business, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, both commissioning agents in Evesham. His earliest memories of Evesham Central Market take us back to the mid 1950s when produce arrived by lorry, motorbike or horse and dray.
Smithfield Market
Karen used to accompany her dad to Smithfield Market in Evesham and describes what it was like in the early 1970s.
‘Hovel’ is a local name, used around Evesham and Pershore, for a market gardener’s shed. Nearly all the market gardeners had sheds or hovels on their land which were used for many different purposes, as remembered here by Robert, Karen, Tom, Henry, Reg and Bob.
Click on the side arrows to scroll left and right through the photos.
Outdoor freedom or hard work in all weathers? Listen to Karen, Francis, Reg and Bob’s memories of growing up and how they found a childhood on the land.
Three generations picking peas in Cleeve Prior (credit: S. English)
Letters
In April 1933, school children in Pershore and Badsey (near Evesham) were asked to write about their lives. Scroll through sections below, or read some of the Pershore letters in full.
Click on the side arrows to scroll left and right through extracts of the 1933 letters.
Black market
During the Second World War, there were countrywide restrictions on what you could grow and sell. But some market gardeners found ways of getting around the rules, as Henry explains.
Women’s Land Army
The Women’s Land Army were vital to keeping the nation fed and over 200,000 women enrolled from 1939-50. Small groups of land girls were stationed in several local villages, including Wickhamford, Harvington, Charlton and Great Comberton.
Click on the side arrows to scroll left and right through the photos.
Changing tastes
An enormous variety of produce was grown in the Vale of Evesham, and local growers were adept at responding to changing times and changing tastes. David, Karen and Geoff recall demand rising and falling for certain products in the 60s and 70s.
A strong accent used to be heard in the Vale of Evesham. ‘Asum Grammar’ as it was called (Asum being a local name for Evesham), was widely spoken until the mid-20th century, but since then its use has faded.
Local poet Bob Woodroofe has preserved this way of speaking in some of his poems. ‘Caribbean’ was written for a competition on the same theme and plays on the fact that the phrase ‘carry beans’ (carry bayuns) sounds the same in Asum Grammar as the sunny tropical islands.
Caribbean
A few instructions on the art of plum picking in the Vale of Evesham
Acknowledgements
This reminiscence pack has been created as part of the Market Gardening Heritage project (2018-21) by Worcestershire Archive & Archaeology Service and partners, with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Many thanks to everyone who shared their memories, family photographs and knowledge, as well as the volunteers who made this project possible.
