Sharing know-how about UK gardening

The project was ambitious, with transformation from a mainly ornamental garden to a productive site re-creating the atmosphere of those long-gone days. The detective work proved exciting, especially when identifying various old apple trees in the village gardens. The Royal Horticultural Society's Fruit Identification Service proved invaluable in this respect, but was downbeat about sourcing Withington Welter, a well remembered and popular cooking apple from the Cheshire village of Lower Withington. 'Long lost', was the answer, but not for that long, as several trees were subsequently found growing locally. Budwood taken from a Styal tree for grafting has resulted in four trees in the Apprentice House garden, including an espalier.

Gooseberries were also a very popular fruit that many cottagers grew competitively for the heaviest berry. These amateur breeders created numerous cultivars that have survived to the present day in the National Collections of gooseberries. Records of the competition winners also survive, so it was possible to select some representative fruit bushes for the garden. And the rhubarb? It had to be Timperley Early, once grown by the acre in the nearby village of Timperley to supply the Manchester markets, and still popular today.

Specific vegetables from the early 1800s have been more difficult to track down, due to general references rather than variety names. And where varieties are mentioned, they haven't all survived the centuries. So although the Apprentice House is a snapshot of 1830s life, and the fruit, herbs and wild flowers are in keeping with this, the vegetables don't necessarily date back this far. The cut-off date is 1900, which increases the scope to fill the plots with slightly less historic, but nonetheless interesting, vegetable varieties known to previous kitchen gardeners.