With thanks to John Parsons
Horticulture, or market gardening has been of feature in Meppershall for a long time. There were nurserymen working during the eighteenth century. Records show Elizabeth Millard had a nursery garden in the Shillington Road area in 1845. At this time these growers would have been producing vegetables, fruit and flowers grown seasonally in their open fields and mostly for local sale in Meppershall and neighbouring villages until the construction of the railway through Shefford which would have enabled delivery to Bedford, Hitchin and beyond.
The first glasshouse, numbers of which became such a feature of Meppershall, was built in 1913 for the growing of cucumbers and was situated on land now occupied by Brookside and Brookmead. After the First World War the nursery was sold to the former Head Gardener of Chicksands Priory who began producing ferns, lilies and flowers. He employed young local men who in due course thought they could do the job just as well and set up further nurseries around the village. This growth continued through the decades until at the peak of the local industry there were 22 nurseries in production within the parish. Initially both flowers and salad crops would have been produced, at least until the Second World War, when the government required flower production to be replaced by food crops, more specifically cucumber growing. By the 1950’s produce was being sold locally and in the London wholesale markets as well as further afield. For a period, cucumber production was sufficient to cause twice weekly deliveries of a full railway wagon from the Goods Yard at Shefford to Manchester. Produce harvested in Meppershall would have been available in shops in Manchester the next day!
Over the years many different crops would have been produced; tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, celery, chrysanthemums, carnations and more recently roses and bedding plants as well as young plants for other growers in the county but most nurseries grew tomatoes in the summer and lettuce through the autumn, winter and spring.
Most of these businesses were small, family based enterprises and this is probably the first of many factors that ultimately led to the disappearance of the industry from the village. It was not an easy way to earn a living even at the height with the success of the business being dependent on the weather, the level of demand from customers and freedom from pest and diseases to name a few issues. As the years passed the sons and daughters of the growers chose in many cases not to join the business. Also, many of greenhouses, built as each nursery was founded, became unsuitable for the modern ways of growing and many of the small firms could not invest the large amounts needed to modernise. The small scale operations were at a further disadvantage as the way we shopped for fresh produce changed with the growth of the supermarkets.
The majority of Meppershall’s production ultimately was sold through the vast number of greengrocers shops found on every High Street. As the supermarkets increased their market share the small shops disappeared. Nationally some growers set up cooperatives to supply the new customers but it could be suggested that the nurserymen of Meppershall were too independent and set in their ways to change. So the industry declined. Further damage was done by the increases in energy costs as oil prices rose and, in an early manifestation of globalisation, it became advantageous to import fresh food in ever increasing amounts.
In fairness to the growers of Meppershall this decline was reflected nationally and a multitude of small enterprises vanished laving a small number of very large scale producers to successfully continue to grow British fruit, vegetables and flowers. In our village, as the demand for new housing grew, the old nurseries were redeveloped and many have now disappeared literally. There is now no commercial production taking place here, a chapter of the village history has closed.
