Yesterday a BBC TV programme, Countryfile, had a section about the former
watercress beds at
Lemsford, which are now an
important nature reserve, where you can see the
green sandpiper. I was interested in the history of the beds, as mentions of watercress growing have often turned up ion this site.
I soon found a
useful online history - but I suspected the beds were older than the explicit references to the 1860s and later. A search of the
British Newspaper Archives found two references - one from 1847 and 1854 - which made it clear that George Tims had growing a significant amount of watercress in this part of the Lea valley well before these dates. See
Farming Watercress at Lemsford.
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