The Old Tomato Nursery

A Memory of Welling.

In the Fifties my family used to live in Gipsy Road. Once a month, or so, I was taken to visit friends of my stepmother, Uncle Andy and Auntie Kit, who lived at the Bexleyheath end of Long Lane. This involved a long walk to get there but along the way there was a handy short cut path between Brampton Road and Long Lane. There were no houses lining this pathway but on one side was a sprawling tomato nursery where the fruit was grown in several big greenhouses. There were also several old black wooden sheds, one being a shop where the freshest most beautiful tomatoes were served to customers by an old white-haired gardener. The whole place had such a special atmosphere including an over-riding smell of ripe tomatoes, compost and fertilizer. Sadly nothing remains of a place in time I once loved, swept aside and replaced by a housing estate

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