The firm of C BARKER known in Covent Garden as Charlie Barker. It was allegedly started by my great grandfather in the very early 1800’s. The farm at that time adjoining Barnes Common with several outlying fields was known originally as the Homestead. However, it was only known to my generation as Barnes Yard. It consisted of a very striking medium sized double fronted cottage style farmhouse with four very tall diamond shaped chimney stacks in two pairs. Also, there was an extensive range of buildings, divided in two parts with a wide road to the land at the rear of the yard.

The yard consisted of very good stabling for several horses, covered sheds for the wagons and storage of baskets on one side. On the other side of the road close to the house, there were a number of large barns for the storage of fodder for the animals. At the rear of yard, there was a seven-acre orchard of mixed top fruit consisting of the best varieties of the time of apples, pears and plums underplanted with gooseberries, red currants and flowers.

My grandfather lived in the house with his wife and family consisting of two boys and two girls. The boys Alexander William (uncle to me) and Walter (my father) took over the business after my grandfather retired.

The firm was granted Charter Stands in Covent Garden in the George IV period prior to 1828. These stands in the long market were recognition for assisting with large gifts of potatoes and vegetables and other produce to help to feed the poor of London during a famine about that time. The firm used those stands daily until the market moved to its new premises at Nine Elms. New rules and regulations appertaining to the market were brought by George IV ln 1828. I have a printed 1828 copy of this. I also had a fuIl map of the
whole market in water paint colour showing in detail the various stands and their owners at that period. Unfortunately, this was destroyed in about 1950 in an accident.

The railways from Waterloo to Windsor and Waterloo to Feltham via Barnes were built during the period of 1840 to 1870. The advent of this made Barnes Yard into an island site being bounded by the Feltham line on one side, the Windsor line on the opposite side and the Beverley Brook at the bottom of the orchard leaving the road frontage onto Vine Road with the vehicular access over two level crossings, which are still there today.

My grandfather left the Homestead in about 1875 to live in Richmond. Whereupon, my father, who was now married, moved into the cottage. In the meantime, the firm having lost various pieces of land to the railways and house builders took over more land along the Upper Richmond Road between Barnes and Richmond.

My sister Beatrice (Bee) was born in 1881 at Barnes Yard and is still hale and hearty at the age of 96 living in London. However, my father and uncle took over the whole business in 1882, whereupon a very considerable change took place. Barnes Yard became a secondary unit, with the centre of operations being transferred to Forty’s Farm in East Sheen, which my father and uncle bought.

Forty’s Farm was a very fine horticultural unit with a frontage to the Upper Richmond Road and a main entrance in Blind Lane (now Temple Sheen Lane) on east side. It comprised a good house, an excellent range of buildings, and above all, most elaborate stabling for several horses. Also, there was a very good range of about 15 large glasshouses heated by Saddle boilers with hot water pipes. In addition, there were potting sheds.

The washing, packing and loading yards were in the centre of the whole range of buildings. Facing the yards, there were open fields running downhill to the main road, and to the north of the buildings there were also open fields running uphill from the yard. Also, there was a small orchard of about 4 acres along Richmond Road.

At this point, I must record the true origin of the white narcissi. It had been recorded in many books incorrectly. My father saw a white flower growing on a grave in Barnes Cemetery on Barnes Common in 1897. Although he was very knowledgeable about all kinds of flowers, he had never seen this one before. He noticed it was a bulbous plant. So, he paid the cemetery grave minder to save these for him when they could be dug up. In this way, he received nine bulbs, which my uncle Tom Mills of Chiswick had three, Peter Barr had three and my father kept the last three for himself. They propagated them with great care. They also found out that it was Ornatus, not narcissi, brought in from abroad. It had never been established with certainty its original habitat, most likely to be Iran or the Caucasian area. It came for sale in Covent Garden in a very few years. The White Ornatus became the so-called White Narcissi. Before that the narcissi were yellow known as the daffodil.

My father ran the farm and my uncle was the salesman in Covent Garden. Another farm Gambridge was taken during this period. It was nearer to Barnes Yard on the Sheen boundary having open ground except for 6 long rows of Victoria plum trees.

My father moved from Barnes Yard to a house in Scarth Road in 1884 on the north side of the railway line about 100 yards away from Barnes Yard. He moved again in about 1894 to a large 8-bedroom house called Tangier Lodge, Vine Road on the south side of the Windsor line. The family lived there for many years until recently. My grandfather died in 1885 at Richmond, but the firm carried on still under the name of C. Barker for many years to come.

The story of my life is that I was born at Tangier Lodge on 5th May 1894. I have a very good memory of events from the age of three years old. At about that time, another farm was undertaken. It was called Pococks, because the previous tenant’s name was Mr Pocock. This was a large farm with good house, farm buildings and eighty or more acres of mixed orchards, with additional five acres by Sheen Common.

We had two maids, Sarah (cook) and Mossy (House Parlour Maid) at Tangier Lodge. Angel, whose father was coachman to Lord Nelson at Trafalgar House near Salisbury had her home was on his estate. Mossy was allowed to take me with Angel to Salisbury on their summer holiday. Although so young, I remember this well. I recall close to their cottage, there were some pigsties and how the piglets used to get out and eat the black plums which had fallen on the ground. It was great fun to chase them back to their styes. This also was the first time I watched a traction engine at work and a threshing box threshing corn.

I revisited the Nelson estate in the late 1950’s to confirm my memories. I called at the Mansion to made myself known and the reason for my visit. I was invited into the hall by Lord Nelson himself, who was the brother to the previous one. We had a long chat. He looked up records of previous employees and then invited me to talk to two of the old craftsmen, who had lived all their life on the estate. They were repairing broken chairs and other pieces of furniture using many of their ancient tools. Then I met the old blacksmith who was repairing wrought iron gates. Afterwards, I found the cottages where I stayed before. It was a very fruitful journey to find that my memories were correct.

l went to school at Roveldon House opposite Barnes Pond from the age of 5 years old. It was run by Miss Rumsey and Miss Osborne.

My next recollection was the death of’ Queen Victoria in 1901. Everything stopped. Blinds were kept drawn. All the shops had single upright blank boards in the middle of their windows with large black bows tied to them. All activity in the country just stopped for a few days.

We were a large family by this time consisting of seven boys and three girls of which I was the youngest but one. Strangely enough we were all given nicknames by our parents. All the family lost them as they grew up except the two youngest ones. We kept ours for the whole of our lives. I was nicknamed Peter supposed to be after my father’s special pony and my younger brother Paddy. I have always been known by everybody as Peter Barker all my life including in business to even today. Many will not believe my proper name. This also applied to Paddy and his nickname is still carried on in my second son’s family today.

We were all taught to work on the farm from very early ages. We were taught how to pick flowers and all kinds of hard and soft fruit for which we were generously paid for our efforts. We were also taught to do various other jobs such as make lid boxes as we grew older.

The various types of baskets started to be disused from about 1900, and boxes instead of baskets started to be used in the Covent Garden trade. The first one I recall was the long box used specially for the cartage of ferns to market. There were several thousand of these at Sheen. The next to appear were the two-bushel and one-bushel boxes to replace the old load and half load baskets.

The load and half load baskets were unusual. The load basket was very Iarge and well made, oval in shape with 6 cane handles two on each side and one at each end sloping sides. They would fit into each other for stacking. Also, they had loose oval lids so that the produce in them was protected from the elements. The lids were tied down with strings. These baskets were so large that two 4- or 5-year oId children could sit in them and it was a two-man job to lift them when full of produce.

The half load was of similar design but smaller with four handles on each side. There was a barn at Barnes Yard stacked full of these old baskets. My father decided to destroy them in 1902, as they were taking valuable space. So, they were all carted and stacked on a piece of waste ground at the end of the railway sidings with the permission of the Railway company and burnt in a Coronation bonfire for King Edward Vll. The range of containers subsequently used for market garden produce consisted of three types of boxes.

I remember 21st October 1905 being the centenary of the Battle of Trafalgar. My father, at the invitation of Mr West, the assistant superintendent of the railway, took my younger brother and me to the Nine Elms railway works on a most unforgettable experience to see the famous railway engines Nos 330 and 337 being built. They were the largest steam engines in the country being 117 tons each. We toured the whole works consisting of the new loco building, repair and maintenance shops, machine shops, casting foundries, engine sheds and turntables.

My eldest brother Charles at that time was on the farm in charge of the male staff and my brother Alec was the second salesman with my uncle in Covent Garden. There was no work done on the farms on Sundays, except the essentials such as the welfare of the horses and the watering and ventilation of the glasshouses and ground frames. However, my father used to drive every Sunday morning at about 8.30 am to Sheen to see all was well.
My father very often used to take me with him for the drive and to see the glasshouses full of enormous quantities of all kinds of fern from spores to ready for market sizes. A one-horse wagon fully loaded was the daily output for Covent Garden market, and a twice weekly delivery to large shops within a five-mile range or so. This was a most interesting part of the business because ferns were in great demand then and for several years to follow.

When my father took me with him on Sundays, the pony trap horse always had two pairs of reins. We had a pair each and so this was how he taught me to drive safely and properly.

I spent all my time I could, such as the school holidays, at the Sheen farm simply because it was such an interesting place. I learnt a lot about growing ferns from spores and many other things besides. The flower pots of all sizes called thumbs, small 60s, 60s, 48s, 32s and 24s were spoken of by their numbers, which was the number of pots in a cast of each size. They used to come from Coles of Tottenham in several pair horse waggons at a time during the summer holiday period. It was nearly a full day work for four or five potting boys to unload them and to stack them into enormous stacks.

Another interesting thing was the preparation of the enormous heaps of potting soil for the ferns. Many loads of top spit soil were carted to a site opposite the shed in the autumn, when the soil was levelled out and broken up and made into a large oblong heap of about 18 inches high. It was then covered with several inches of well-rotted horse manure, and then with another 18-inch layer of soil, and then another similar layer of rotted manure. Finally, a third layer of soil was put on top making this enormous heap about a man high. This was subsequently trodden down by a man walking about on top to level the heap. The sides and ends were neatly trimmed and smoothed down to make the heap look neat. A few weeks elapsed and the soil in the heap had to be turned in the opposite direction and made all neat and tidy. The glasshouse foreman Tom Francis, at this time, used to put lumps of mushroom spawn cakes into the-south side of the heap to have a lovely lot of mushrooms in the spring. The heap stood utilising the action of worms and frost until the potting soil was required for use in the following spring.

The painting of the firm’s name on the baskets was also interesting. As now, at certain times of the year, large quantities of produce used to come over from Holland to Covent Garden in unmarked baskets for which the buyers were obliged to buy. My Uncle and brother used to buy the empty baskets from the greengrocers visiting the market in those times, who were paid at the rate of 9 pence to one shilling and twopence each according to size and condition. The ‘empties’ were brought home to the Pococks farm and stored until the winter. Two men of Perrins the basket makers came to the farm and painted the firms name of C. Barker in red on them. The speed these men painted the names was truly amazing. This took several days as there was a very large quantity to do.

The summer holidays were a wonderful time from the early days of August until late in September because of the fruit picking season. There were a number of non-travelling Roma origin families living in the Mortlake area expert in fruit picking. They started in the spring with early peas, early potatoes, proceeding onto strawberries, red and white currants, gooseberries and then to top fruit apples, pears, plums and cherries and to hop picking finishing with the autumn potato harvest. They spent the winter beating and cleaning carpets, tinkering and a manner of odd jobs. They were also expert repairers of cane seated chairs.

My father took over the entire gang both men pickers and women packers in the fruit picking season. He was most particular and proud of the business. The fruit was gathered into special picking baskets with wooden hooks, so that they would hang on the ladder rungs. When the basket was full, the man would take it to the packers nearby and return with an empty one. No drops were allowed to be picked up. Only the best was picked and any small ones left to grow bigger. The women packers handled all the fruit singly grading them into three grades, Firsts, Seconds and Specs.

The first grades were put into bushel baskets with a layer of wood wool in the bottom of the basket and the sides lined with blue paper. The second-grade had similar treatment with only one side basket was lined with blue paper and the other side had pink paper. The specs were lined with white paper. This applied to all fruit except very ripe plums, which were packed in peck baskets in layers and lined with pink paper. All baskets, when fully packed, had a good layer of wood wool on top and secured by criss-cross method with string.

The county of Middlesex was a huge horticultural area of orchards, soft fruits and every kind of vegetables in huge quantities, thanks to the horse and cow for a never-ending supply of good manure and the wonderful soil. It was always said that Middlesex had the best soil in the world at that time. AIas, it has all gone, covered over with aII manner of things.

I left school at the age of 15 in the Spring of 1909. I had to find a job. It was not easy for school leavers to find jobs at that time. After answering many advertisements in
the Daily Telegraph without much success, with the introduction of my brother Jack, I went up to the City for an interview with a firm of stockbrokers, which gave me a job as a junior clerk. The rubber boom had just started. The hours were very long until 8 to 9 pm. These hours lasted until early in 1910 when it slowly came back to normal. I stayed on for the next three years having a most valuable experience and I knew London well.

I soon became a senior junior clerk. I Iearnt all about stocks, shares, bonds, wills, marriage settlements with the registering, certification and so on with various companies and banks
in all parts of London. The Stock Exchange fell into a very bad time in 1912, with orders became decreasing daily. We had little to do by January 1913 and we were leaving the office often at 4 o’clock.

I made up my mind suddenly to resign as I had become disillusioned. I went to the Head Partner of the firm to give my notice to leave at the end of the month. He readily agreed after hearing my reasons for leaving and so I left the City forever. I told my father a couple of days later why I was leaving the City for good. I asked him if he had room for me on the Farm. He agreed and that is how l came back to the farm without any regrets.

Things had changed a lot. My eldest brother Charles was married and had his own farm at Enfield. My uncle had retired from selling in the market owing to bad health. My brother Alec was now chief salesman and another brother Harry was in charge of the men.

Barnes Yard was taken by Barnes Council under compulsory powers in 1927, much to the regret of everybody and turned into playing fields, now known as Vine Road Recreation Ground.