Abingworth Nurseries
Where: Abingworth, West Sussex
Built: 1945
Architect: Unknown
Abandoned: Before 2013
Listed: No
Visited: 2014, 2015
Last Known Condition: Demolished
Page Updated: October 2015
Moving
swiftly and quietly
around the back of
the shed, I made my
way to the open door
and stepped inside.
The first thing that
I noticed was
the smell, an
overpowering floral
aroma underlain by
an astringent
chemical tang. The
second thing was
that the floor was
covered in what
appeared to be dried
flower petals; great
heaps of them,
spilling out of bags
and boxes and banked
up against the walls.
A long corridor ran the length of the building and side-rooms were stuffed
with crates of exotic seed
pods,
ribbon and gold
spray paint. Of all
things, I'd discovered an abandoned
potpourri factory.
Abingworth Farm was bought by A. G. Linfield & Sons, nurserymen, in 1945. Linfield's, who
already had a farm at nearby Chesswood, converted the old dairy farm buildings and built a number of large sheds for growing mushrooms, then considered a luxury product which would command high prices at market.
By 1960 the firm was
the largest mushroom
grower in Europe,
using manure from
its pig and poultry
farms to produce
compost, and
employing 600
people.
As production techniques improved and shipping capabilities allowed more foreign imports, mushroom prices fell and Linfield's concentrated production on their nearby Chesswood Farm, leaving only a few sheds in production at Abingworth. The rest of the sheds were let out as light industrial units, which is
where the potpourri
comes in. In its commonest form, potpourri is a
perfumed assortment of
decorative flowers, bark &c. used to give a pleasant fragrance to a room. The
stuff always smelled
funny to me and was a magnet for dust, but until quite recently it was big business.
The factory was run
by Pecksniffs, a local fragrance
company:
imported seedpods, flowers and bark strips were soaked
in perfume, dried,
mixed and bagged
for distribution to
high-end department
stores and florists around the UK.
I haven't been able to determine when the
production of
potpourri stopped
but the fragrance
company was wound up
in 2009. By 2013
the Abingworth site
was unoccupied,
and six months
after these
photographs were
taken all of the buildings had been demolished. It is
understood that after landscaping and decontamination,
houses are to be
built on the site.
Bibliography
Baggs, A.P., Currie, C.R.J., Elrington, C.R., Keeling, S.M. and Rowland, A.M. (1986) "Thakeham: Economic history" in Hudson, T.P. (Ed.)"A History of the County of Sussex" "Vol. 6 Pt. 2. London: Victoria County Histories. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol6/pt2/pp40-44 [accessed 26/08/2015].Linfield, M. (2000) "Photographs - Precious Records of the Past" "URL: http://www.lindfield.org/longshot/volume_8/photographs_-_precious_records_of_the_past.html [accessed 26/08/2015]
Linfield, M. (1996) "The Long Collection of Newspaper and Magazine Cuttings (Part 2)" "URL: http://www.lindfield">http://www.lindfield.org/longshot/volume_5/the_long_collection_of_newspaper_and_magazine_cuttings_(part_2).html [accessed 26/08/2015]