By Richard Bryant, Lindfield History Project Group
During the first three quarters of the last century horticultural businesses thrived in and around Lindfield providing much employment. The demand for house building land, the rise of garden centres, large scale commercial growing and other local employment opportunities contributed to their demise. Before it became Linden Grove, the land had been used as a nursery. First in about 1906, it became home to the Orchid Nursery run by Andreas Jensen, who imported and grew orchids in a range of heated glasshouses. After the Great War he sold his entire stock of 16,000 orchids by auction. The nursery was then taken over by Christopher Jupp and traded as Phurah Nurseries growing summer bedding plants, pot plants and vegetable plants for over four decades.
Another nursery that began early in the 1900s was located behind the houses in Compton Road, in what today is the Tollgate car park. Like Phurah Nurseries it had a range of glasshouses and cold frames. According to Ordnance Survey maps it had disappeared by around 1950. The owner or what was grown is not known and if you have any information about this nursery please do get in touch. The name Appledore Gardens suggests the road and houses were built on what might previously have been a market garden or an orchard, but again information has not been found. However it is known that nearby French Gardens took its name from a small market garden business of that name established on the land by the French brothers in the early decades of the twentieth century. It specialised in growing salad crops under glass, for sale at market and by greengrocers until the mid 1960s.
The largest nursery in Lindfield was Box’s, a name perhaps better known in recent decades for the butchers and greengrocers in the High Street. Their land stretched from behind the High Street, Lewes Road, and Luxford Road up to the line of Brushes Lane, north of today’s Dukes Road. Originally this land comprised four fields, Great Tainter, Upper Tainter, Lower Tainter and Farm Mead. It is said the Tainter names were derived from tenter, as in tenterhooks, being the frames used in processing flax to become cloth that stood in the fields in centuries past. Like the other nurseries, it opened around 1900 and continued until the land was sold for the expansion of Lindfield. At its peak up to 50 men were employed in growing trees, shrubs and perennial plants. The Box Nursery regularly won prestigious awards at major horticultural shows.
In 1935, Frederick Smith, an employee at Box’s, acquired an adjoining field, off Luxford Road, and established his own nursery. His speciality was roses and he had a stock of over 4,000 bushes. With the advent of the blackout in World War II everyone needed a torch. To meet the demand for batteries Frederick Smith established a small factory employing 12 women in a shed on his nursery to make ‘No 8 batteries’. Smith’s Nursery (Lindfield) Ltd closed in 1976 and the land became Harvest Close.
Nearby, also in the mid 1930s, a Mr Slack purchased the land to the east of Eastern Road, behind Noahs Ark Cottage in Lewes Road, with plans to develop the site to primarily grow mushrooms. Lindfield Nurseries Ltd came into existence although locally it was better known as the ‘Mushroom Factory’. It was a major undertaking, with eight 90 feet long windowless growing sheds, a packing shed and a covered yard plus ancillary buildings. Each growing shed comprised three rows of growing beds that ran the length of the building, with the beds having four tiers. Manure was delivered from farms and stables, but had to be well rotted before it could be used. On becoming rotted it was transferred to the covered yard, known as the turning shed, where it was constantly turned until ready for use as the base for the growing beds, and topped with compost or soil.
To ensure a constant supply of mushrooms the sheds were used in rotation. The filled beds when sown with mushroom spores did not take long to germinate in the dark, humid conditions maintained in the shed. In a matter of weeks the mushrooms could be harvested and sent to the packing shed for grading and packing. At peak times, up to three tons a week were despatched to market. When each crop had finished the beds had to be emptied and refilled ready for the next crop cycle. The spent mushroom compost was transferred to the market garden section of the nursery, adjacent to the sheds, where it was used to grow rhubarb and salad crops. After a few years Mr Slack sold the business and shortly after it changed hands again when it was bought by the Filmer brothers. The business continued to trade successfully until the late 1960s and following closure, the land became the Noahs Ark Lane housing development.
Towards Lindfield parish’s eastern boundary in Sluts Lane, latterly renamed Snowdrop Lane, and close to the Inn was Snowdrop Gardens, a nursery specialising in summer bedding plants, fruit and vegetables, run for many years by Mr H Cross and his son. On nearby Lyoth Common was the site of Charlesworth & Company’s renowned orchid nursery. Joseph Charlesworth while involved with the Yorkshire wool trade had pursued the cultivation of orchids as a hobby. In 1886, he decided to convert his hobby into a business opening an orchid nursery in Bradford. His passion was to create hybrid orchids and to obtain new varieties, he toured South America collecting new species and studied how they grew naturally. The nursery quickly prospered and Joseph Charlesworth decided to open a small nursery at Valebridge, Burgess Hill, to compare how growing orchids in the milder climate of Sussex compared with Yorkshire.
The results were very favourable and Joseph Charlesworth, in the early years of the 1900s, moved his entire orchid business to a new site at Lyoth Common. This nursery became a major and renowned grower of a large range of hybrid orchids which were exhibited at major horticultural shows, winning many awards. Examples of ‘Charlesworth’ varieties found their way into all major collections and continue to feature to this day.
A significant number of young Lindfield men found employment at the nursery. At the outbreak of the Great War, Joseph Charlesworth, as a proud patriot, offered his young employees a bounty of five pounds and guaranteed re-employment if they volunteered to join the Army. Sadly, not all who served ‘King and Country’ returned. Following Joseph Charlesworth’s death in 1920, aged 68, the company continued for a further 50 years.
In 1971, McBean’s Nursery at Cooksbridge, near Lewes acquired the stock and business of Charlesworth & Co. Resulting from the acquired collection, McBean’s produced two new hybrid orchids, Royal Wedding and Royal Occasion, which were proudly supplied for the wedding bouquet of HRH Diana, Princess of Wales. Like most of the other nurseries, on its demise growing gave way to housing although its past usage is recognised in the names Charlesworth Park and Orchid Park in nearby Northlands Wood development.
Contact Lindfield History Project Group on 01444 482136 or visit https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/