https://rootedconnections.org.uk/

Rooted Connections CIC, Worden Park, Leyland (2026)

01/09/2026

Growing grapes in Lancashire is one thing 🍇

Growing enough to harvest 120–140lb in a good year is quite another.

🌿 250 Years of Worden Walled Garden

Chapter 9, Inside the Vinery

The secret wasn't just the vine.

It was everything built around it.

By the mid-nineteenth century, when the Walled Garden appears on the earliest Ordnance Survey mapping, a vinery was already part of the garden.

This was horticultural technology.

Glass captured the warmth of the sun. Ventilation helped gardeners control temperature and humidity. Heating could extend the growing season. Water had to be carefully managed.

And every vine needed pruning, training and tending by gardeners who understood exactly what they were doing.

The surviving vinery at Worden still contains clues to that working past.

When the garden was researched in the 1990s, its old ventilation mechanism was still in place, along with a built-in water cistern behind the entrance door.

And above it all grew the Black Hamburg vines.

Five were recorded at the time, producing up to 140lb of grapes annually.

This wasn't gardening by accident.

It was knowledge passed from gardener to gardener, combined with engineering designed to create the right conditions for something extraordinary to grow.

And that's perhaps what makes standing beneath the vine today so special.

We're not simply looking at an old plant.

We're standing inside part of a horticultural system that generations of gardeners understood, maintained and improved.

Some of that knowledge has disappeared.

Some of the machinery has gone.

But the vine is still here.

Still growing.

Still producing grapes.

And now we're learning how to care for it all over again. 💚

📖 From the archives: Research from the 1990s records the vinery's ventilation mechanism and built-in cistern, alongside five Black Hamburg vines producing up to 140lb of grapes annually.

🌱 Writing the next chapter by uncovering the last 250 years.

Next week: The Melon Pit — Growing the Impossible Underground.

31/08/2026

In celebration of World Alzheimer’s Day 2026, on Thursday 17th September, The South Ribble Dementia Community Connection are holding a walk – we are calling it a Living Well Walk.

It is a gentle walk through Longton Nature Reserve, suitable for all.

We start at 11am and there is some great music and singing from Katy Bradley from KTB Music, along with refreshments and some great information around dementia and living well with dementia at the end.

To attend please just turn up or for any questions email [email protected] or call 01772 625625 and leave a message for Louise.

29/08/2026

🌿 250 Years of Worden Walled Garden

Chapter 8 - The Hampton Court Mystery🍇

This week, our volunteers harvested grapes from the old vine at Worden.

But just how far back does the story of grapes in this garden go?

Much further than we first realised.

In 1795, Shaw Hall (as Worden was then known) was described as having a “very excellent kitchen garden with fruit stoves”.

Then, during the nineteenth century, a newspaper report records something remarkable being exhibited locally:

“Grapes from Shaw Hall, grown against a wall in the open air.”

By the time the garden appeared on the earliest Ordnance Survey mapping around 1850, a vinery was already established against the north wall.

Later generations continued the tradition. Black Hamburg vines are documented here in the twentieth century, producing as much as 120–140lb of grapes in a good year.

And now, in 2026, another generation has stood beneath the vines and harvested grapes once again. 💚

But there’s a mystery running through this story…

For years, people have told us that Worden’s vine grew from a cutting taken from the famous Great Vine at Hampton Court Palace.

The dates make the story tantalising.

The grape-growing heritage at Worden is certainly old enough.

But so far, we’ve found no letter, receipt or estate record that proves the connection.

And that matters.

Part of uncovering the history of this place means being honest about the difference between what we can prove and what has been passed down through generations.

So, for now, the Hampton Court connection remains one of Worden’s great mysteries.

But what we can say with confidence is perhaps just as remarkable:

🍇 People have been successfully growing grapes here for well over two centuries — and they’re still doing it today.

📖 From the archives: Historical records reveal a remarkable progression of fruit growing at Worden, from eighteenth-century fruit stoves, to nineteenth-century wall-grown grapes and a vinery, through to the Black Hamburg vines documented in the twentieth century.

💚 Writing the next chapter by uncovering the last 250 years.

Next week: Inside the Vinery — How Lancashire Gardeners Grew Grapes.

25/08/2026

🌿250 Years of Worden Walled Garden

Chapter 7, The Great Vine of Worden 🍇

This is one of the Walled Garden’s most remarkable living links with its past.

The old, gnarled wood above these grapes belongs to a Black Hamburg vine whose story has become almost as intriguing as the garden itself.

Grapes have been grown at Worden for generations.

We know they were important here during the Farington era, and by the nineteenth century the garden had its own vine house. Later records describe several Black Hamburg vines growing here, capable of producing an astonishing 120–140lb of grapes in a good year.

But the grapes weren’t always simply harvested for the garden.

By the 1950s, a lovely tradition had developed. Worden’s annual grape harvest was distributed to retirement homes across South Ribble, with the Mayor taking the grapes out into the community.

We know the Faringtons had been growing grapes here for generations before that, but we’re still trying to discover exactly when the tradition of sharing Worden’s harvest began.

There’s something rather lovely about it.

Something grown within these walls being used to connect with people beyond them. 💚

But the vine has another story attached to it…

For many years, people have said that Worden’s vine has a connection to the famous Great Vine at Hampton Court Palace — supposedly grown from a cutting taken from it.

It’s a wonderful story.

But is it true?

That’s something we’ve been trying to uncover.

And, as is often the case with history, the answer isn’t quite as straightforward as we’d hoped…

📖 From the archives: Records from the early 1990s describe Black Hamburg vines at Worden producing up to 140lb of grapes annually, alongside the long-running tradition of sharing the harvest with local retirement homes.

💚 Writing the next chapter by uncovering the last 250 years.

Next week: The Hampton Court Mystery — Is Worden’s Vine Really a Cutting from the Great Vine? 🍇

22/08/2026

🌿 250 Years of Worden Walled Garden

Chapter 6 — Growing the Extraordinary

Imagine picking a ripe peach in Lancashire…

…in the late 1700s. 🍑

It sounds unlikely. Yet that’s exactly what the gardeners at Worden were preparing to do.

On 8 January 1778, just months after work on the garden walls was underway, Sir William ffarington’s cash book records a payment to **Giles Boardman for ten peach and nectarine trees.

These were no ordinary fruit trees.

Peaches and nectarines were luxury crops, difficult to grow in Britain’s climate and usually found in the finest kitchen gardens.

So how did they plan to grow them here in Lancashire?

🔥 The answer was hidden inside the walls.

Parts of Worden’s garden walls were built hollow, with flues running through the brickwork. Fires could warm the walls, while the bricks also absorbed heat from the sun during the day and released it slowly as temperatures fell.

Together with the shelter of the Walled Garden, this created a warmer microclimate where tender fruit had a much better chance of thriving.

This wasn’t simply gardening.

It was engineering and innovation — nearly 250 years ago.

When we look at the Walled Garden today, it’s easy to admire the old brickwork. But these walls weren’t simply boundaries.

They were part of a sophisticated growing system designed to make the extraordinary possible.

And nearly 250 years later, they’re still here.

Look closely today and you’ll still see fruit trees trained against the bricks, connecting what we’re growing now with the gardeners who worked here generations ago. 🌱

📖 From the archives: Estate records from 1778 include payments for iron flue doors and ten peach and nectarine trees — wonderful evidence of the ambition behind Worden’s new Walled Garden.

💚 We’re writing the next chapter by uncovering the last 250 years.

Next week: The Great Vine of Worden. 🍇

21/08/2026

Tomorrow, Saturday 22nd August, we will be at the Golden Hill Garden PR25 3NN from 9.30am for a tidy up…..all are welcome. See you there🌻🐝🐞🧹

16/08/2026

🌼 A little bit of folklore has appeared in the Walled Garden…

This beautiful mullein (Verbascum) has somehow found enough soil to grow from the tiniest gap beside one of our old doorways – so we’re leaving it exactly where it chose to be.

Mullein has a fascinating history. For centuries it appeared in traditional herbal medicine, particularly in preparations for coughs, sore throats and respiratory complaints.

It has folklore too. Mullein was associated with protection and warding off evil, while its tall dried flower stems were once dipped in fat or wax and used as torches – giving rise to old names including “hag’s taper.”

And its usefulness hasn’t ended. Its yellow flowers provide food for pollinators, while Verbascum is also the food plant of the brilliantly named mullein moth caterpillar. 🐛🐝

All of that history and wildlife value from a plant that simply decided to grow in a crack beside a 250-year-old garden wall. 💚

Sometimes nature really does choose the perfect spot. 🌱

Traditional uses mentioned for historical interest only.

15/08/2026

🌿 250 Years of Worden Walled Garden

Chapter 5 – The Gardeners Who Brought It to Life

A garden isn't remembered because someone built it.

It's remembered because someone cared for it.

Day after day. Year after year. Generation after generation.

Once the walls of the Walled Garden were complete, the real work had only just begun.

Seeds had to be sown.

Fruit trees carefully trained.

Glasshouses managed.

Vegetables harvested.

Walls maintained.

Every season brought new challenges, and every season depended on the skill, knowledge and dedication of the gardeners who worked here.

Thanks to memories recorded from former gardeners and estate workers, we know the Walled Garden was cared for by a Head Gardener and a team of three or four gardeners. Together they supplied Worden Hall with an extraordinary variety of produce, including salads, tomatoes, asparagus, potatoes, pears, apples and grapes.

One particularly special memory came from Mrs Crook, whose father began working at Worden as a gardener in **1896**, later becoming Head Gardener.

She remembered Sir William ffarington walking through the Walled Garden every morning with his dog, inspecting the crops, chatting with the gardeners and recording the day's weather before continuing his walk around the estate.

It's a wonderful glimpse into a garden at the height of its working life.

For nearly two centuries, this wasn't simply a beautiful place.

It was a place of purpose.

A place of knowledge.

A place of craftsmanship.

Today, that work looks different.

We're no longer growing food for a country house.

Instead, volunteers are helping restore the garden for the whole community.

Different people.

Different purpose.

The same spirit of care.

Perhaps that's what has kept this place alive for almost 250 years.

Not just the bricks.

Not the buildings.

But the people willing to give their time, their knowledge and a little bit of themselves.

Every generation has had its gardeners.

Today, they're our volunteers.💚

📷 **About this photograph:** The image accompanying this post shows Victorian kitchen gardeners from the period (from 'The Victorian Kitchen Garden' by Jennifer Davies). Although they didn't work at Worden, they offer a glimpse into the lives of the skilled men and women whose working day would have been very similar to those who cared for the Walled Garden here in Leyland.

🌿 Writing the next chapter by uncovering the last 250 years.

💚 Next week: Growing the Extraordinary – How Worden Grew Peaches and Nectarines in Lancashire.**

12/08/2026

🌿 250 Years of Worden Walled Garden

Chapter 4 – Who Built the Walled Garden?

If I asked you who built the Walled Garden...

Most people would probably answer:

"The Faringtons."

And, in many ways, they'd be right.

But history isn't built by one person.

It's built by many.

While researching the garden, we came across this remarkable page from **Sir William ffarington's cash book.

At first glance, it's just a list of payments.

Look a little closer...
..and the people behind the garden begin to appear.

🧱 Addison – supplied 58,000 bricks.

📏 Matthew Clitherow – worked on the garden walls before later measuring them.

🪨 Robert Gudgeon – supplied the coping stones that have protected the walls for nearly 250 years.

🔨 John Sumner – crafted the ironwork for the heated flue doors.

🌳 And perhaps our favourite entry of all...

On 8 January 1778, Giles Boardman supplied ten peach and nectarine trees.

Just a handful of names.

A few entries in an old account book.

Yet together, they tell the story of the people who physically created one of Lancashire's finest historic kitchen gardens.

They probably never imagined that, almost 250 years later, people would still be reading their names.

Or that the walls they helped build would still be standing.

History often remembers the people who commissioned great places.

But places like this were built by craftspeople.

Brickmakers.

Bricklayers.

Blacksmiths.

Gardeners.

People whose legacy isn't found in statues...
..but in work that simply stood the test of time.

As we restore the Walled Garden today, it's impossible not to think about those people.

We know so little about their lives.

Yet every volunteer, visitor and child who walks through these gates is benefiting from the care, pride and craftsmanship they left behind.

Perhaps that's the greatest legacy any of us can hope for.

Not to be remembered for our names...

But for the difference we leave behind.

🌿 Writing the next chapter by uncovering the last 250 years.

📖 From the archives: Sir William ffarington's cash book records payments to the people involved in constructing the Walled Garden during 1777–78, including 58,000 bricks, work on the garden walls, iron flue doors, and ten peach and nectarine trees.

💚 Next week: The Gardeners Who Brought It to Life.

Which of these names caught your attention most? We'd love to know in the comments—and if you have family stories connected to Worden Hall or the Walled Garden, we'd love to hear those too.

11/08/2026

The new benches arrived last week and have found their home outside the potting sheds.

I'm looking forward to seeing them being used.

Whether it's volunteers having a brew after a session, someone eating their lunch, or grandparents watching the grandchildren explore the garden...

That's exactly what they're there for. 💚

Rooted Connections CIC

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