Sharing know-how about UK gardening

The garden around the home of apprentices working at the nearby Quarry Bank cotton mill, south of Manchester, is historic for two reasons. Begun in 1981 as one of the first of a number of vegetable sanctuaries proposed by Lawrence Hills (the founder of the organic-growing organisation now known as Garden Organic), it also demonstrates self sufficiency, 19th-century style.

Owned by the National Trust, the garden is now complete with orchard, soft fruit and poultry. Envisaged as what might have been in the 1830s, the garden interests and educates young and old alike.

With no designs or plans surviving (if they ever existed), the garden has been set out in straightforward plots. The emphasis is on common edible plants, especially locally bred and grown varieties, plus plants that cottagers of the time would have either grown or collected from the countryside to supplement their diet, treat illnesses, repel insects or dye cloth.