Alison Jones discovers the love and attention to detail that has gone into restoring some of the country’s rarest Victorian gardens.

In the middle of Warwick there was once a secret wilderness. Overgrown with brambles and ivy, it was the habitat of adventurous children who hacked their way through to build dens. Of the odd tramp who would occasionally take shelter in the small crumbling brick buildings on the site. And of a hardy gardener called George Mills, who refused to abandon his plot and continued to cultivate prize-winning vegetables while surrounded by dereliction and weeds.

They were known locally as the Linen Street Allotments, but it was name that didn’t do justice to their historical significance.

“In 1846 the owner of this piece of agricultural land sloping down from the town centre to the racecourse decided to sell it off in 32 separate pieces,” reveals Margaret Begg, a former member of Warwick District Council.

“It was a very astute move because there was huge demand from the townspeople for somewhere to take their families that wasn’t smelly and cramped. Where they could grow fruit and vegetables and let their children play.

“This was happening all over the country as people only had yards so the idea of detached gardens was very popular.”

With the space behind their homes and businesses packed with privies, washhouses, stables and coach houses, these private plots, surrounded by hedges and with a gate that only they had the key to, were the pride and joy of Victorian tradespeople.

It was place they could escape to, away from their stores, and take a break from the daily grind of hard work, They could even brew up in the little fireplaces inside the summerhouses they built.

Gradually the gardens began to fall out of favour as people moved to the suburbs and into villas with land attached.

The increase in popularity of supermarkets in the 1960s and 1970s meant it became more convenient to buy fruit and vegetables rather than growing them.

The plots in Warwick, which were originally named Hill Close Gardens, were gradually sold off for development until only 16 of the original 32 remained – and these were being hungrily eyed by the council who wanted the space for social housing.

However, when the bulldozers moved on in the summer of 1993 the local residents suddenly swung into action.

“There was a huge protest,” says Margaret. “They said the council couldn’t do it because of the summerhouses.”

It was these small brick-built homes, along with the remnants of hedges, rose bushes and fruit trees that still bloomed among the weeds, that hinted at these plots being more than just typical allotments.

A meeting was held and the residents appealed to the councillors, Margaret among them, to stop the development plans and realise there was something special about these gardens.

“Fortunately the new chief executive was particularly interested in conservation and he got English Heritage to come down. By then they had cut paths through the jungle and made a little space so you could walk round the buildings,” she recalls.

“English Heritage recognised straight away that these houses dated back to the late 1800s.”

“They were quite substantial. There is a suspicion that some owners did sleep overnight in them, although there were no what you might call facilities. The one in Plot 17 (belonging to a James Styles, a wealthy furniture store owner) did have a compost loo in the basement.

“It was rather like having a holiday cottage or beach hut now – no small investment.

“The upper plots belonged to people of some means. As you went down towards the bottom where you got less sun, less view and occasional flooding, they were owned by more humble people, like old soldiers, a trumpet major and a publican.”

The detached gardens were a rare find. Once there were hundreds all over the country, now there are only four – the others are in Birmingham, Coventry and Nottingham.

Four of the summerhouses at Hill Close have been Grade II* listed and the gardens themselves deemed to be of historical importance.

Development in Edwardian times had eaten into some of the plots. Others were taken during the 1950s to provide stabling for Warwick Racecourse.

Proximity to the latter, which has existed since the 1700s, was to the gardeners advantage as they were able to make use of the natural fertilizer provided by the animals.

One of the lanes leading to the gardens is the succinctly named Bread and Meat Close, so called because it was where food was once distributed to the poor.

Persuaded that Hill Close Gardens, once restored, could become an attraction for the town, the council gave up on their long-standing plans to build (the site had been identified as a development opportunity as far back as 1947).

They were unwilling to take on the responsibility for the project themselves and instead agreed to lease the land for a peppercorn rent to the newly