Archive

We've just published our first podcast! Using interviews we recorded as part of the Market Gardening Heritage Project the podcast has just gone live. have a listen and hear tales and memories of this important local industry.

A local football story was uncovered during the Market Gardening Heritage Project, whilst going through one of the hovels which is being restored as part of the project. The hovel’s contents, which had been left behind by Edgar Wheeler after he died in the 1990s, included report sheets for the Evesham Journal, for whom he sent match reports, as well as his gardening tools and paperwork.

  Hidden and often forgotten, yet crucial. This is the story of many women who worked on market gardens in the Vale of Evesham – women who helped feed the nation and support their families. Small plots growing fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers for national markets covered the southeast corner of Worcestershire during the 19th...

It’s one thing to read how things were, or record historic objects and buildings, but it’s quite another to hear people talk about the past and telling their stories. Oral history, recording these personal accounts, is an important part of capturing the past that lies within living memory. A key aim of the Market Gardening...

This leaflet, which was recently passed to us, has revealed a fascinating story. It is an advert by David Eric Tower of The Hill, Pershore, who offers Pershore plums from Pershore. However looking into his story he doesn’t seem your typical market gardener, being an Oxbridge graduate with some private wealth behind him.   He...

Over the summer we have been meeting lots of people at events, as part of the Market Gardening Heritage Project, who have been sharing stories, memories and photos about market gardening in the Vale of Evesham.   The project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Historic England, seeks to record and research the...

We need your help! The Market Gardening Heritage Project is looking for volunteers to help record fascinating stories and preserve an important chapter in the Vale of Evesham’s history. Training workshops are coming up in the next few weeks, so do get in touch if you’re interested.  Archiving a Time Capsule  One day Edgar Wheeler,...

As part of the Market Gardening Heritage project, we’re drawing information from various sources to uncover the lives and stories of market gardening, which was vital to the Vale of Evesham throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries. Alongside recording local memories and investigating the buildings constructed by growers on their grounds (locally called...

  Driving over the bridge into Evesham you pass asparagus fields – a small remnant of the market gardening industry that thrived in the Vale of Evesham until the mid-20th century. A new project exploring and celebrating the market gardening heritage in the Vale is now underway and looking for volunteers. The key focus of...

  A new two year project focussing on the market gardening heritage in the Vale of Evesham has just been awarded £68,700 by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and £5000 from Historic England. The project is being run by Worcestershire Archive & Archaeology Service (WAAS), in partnership with Cleeve Prior Heritage Trust, Vale Landscape Heritage...