Adèle Emm uses census records and online research to chart the varying fortunes of eight young men who were photographed working in the gardens of Worsley Hall in the early 20th century
The history of the Lost Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall, is well known. The young gardeners marched into the Great War, many never to return, and the gardens declined into brambles until rediscovered by Sir Tim Smit over 30 years ago. Recently, I visited the newly-opened RHS Garden Bridgewater in Salford, Greater Manchester. After buying a coffee at the magnificent
gardener’s cottage, home for 50 years to venerable head gardener William Barber Upjohn until his death aged 96 in June 1936, I wondered about the gardeners here. Did they suffer the same fate as the young men of Heligan?
Delayed by the pandemic, RHS Garden Bridgewater (www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/bridgewater) took six years to develop, finally opening in May 2021. It was created from the former gardens of Worsley New Hall, originally owned by the earls of Ellesmere (Egerton Estate). Built in the 1840s, Worsley New Hall itself fell into decline after World War Two and was demolished during the 1940s.
Worsley’s young gardeners
Built at the same time as Worsley New Hall, the young gardeners boarded at ‘the Bothy’ (shown opposite) – easily spotted by the square chimney of the neighbouring furnace which heated the glasshouses. Today, a noticeboard outside the Bothy displays a c.1900 photo (shown above) of six young men leaning against a wall.
In 1911, eight young men lived here – all single.
The eldest, at 28, was foreman-gardener Arthur Edward Upjohn, the head gardener’s son. Living independently two minutes’ walk from his parents’ home, I imagine mum and dad keeping a (benevolent?) eye on him and the other lads. In 1901, apprentice gardener Arthur lived with his parents. Is he one of the youths in the photograph shown?
A year after the 1911 Census, Arthur married Amelia Alice Charlton; their daughter Alice Mary was born in 1913. As only single men lodged in the Bothy, he moved into Monumental Lodge, the estate gatehouse. Regardless of his physical job, Arthur was only 5ft 3” tall (the average height of the British Tommy in WW1 was 5 ft 4”) when he enlisted in early December 1915 as a driver for the Royal Engineers. Demobbed on 25 February 1919, he returned to his wife and daughter at the Lodge.
By the 1921 Census, still gardening for Lord Ellesmere, he and his family had relocated to a house on Egerton Terrace – 199 Leigh Road – a house on land owned by the estate a few
