Hello, I'm Lucy Worsley, chief curator at Historic Royal Palluses. You're listening to our podcast

that explores the history and stories of our six palaces. These talks are a collection of some of our

best live events. I really hope you enjoy listening. The history of the English garden reveals more than expected about the past and its people.

This series explores the theme of gardens as places of work, rest and leisure.

In this talk, Historic Royal Palace's gardener Vicky Cook explains the history of Hampton Court's kitchen garden.

I've been here at Hampton Court for two and a half years now and I've been, was brought in just to the kitchen garden because that's my speciality and that's my main interest is fruit and veg growing.

But also, I'm really interested in learning more about the history and the research about

the sort of historical origins and some of the interesting tools and techniques that were used

in the 18th century. So this talk will, because we're looking at history of the garden as well as some of the real

practical up-to-date things, I'm thinking what would an 18th century gardener make of the work

in our modern kitchen garden today? So one of the first things that probably ought to be said

is I shall refer to our historical kitchen gardener as a he, because he probably would

have been a he. There were women working in an old-fashioned kitchen garden, but they would

have been drafted in very much on a casual temporary basis to do some of the weeding or the real

sort of heavy drudge work. They were certainly not seen as a skilled member of the team.

However, nowadays, our kitchen garden can boast four female staff members. So I think some eyebrows

perhaps would be raised by the gender difference of the modern kitchen garden. Although,

I shall bear Graham's advice in mind, and we shall avert our eyes now every time we walk past the cucumber patch.

So what would an 18th century gardener recognize in a modern kitchen garden?

Well, he would probably recognise a lot of the tools we use today.

If you've ever looked at old

illustrations from the 17th-18th century gardening books, a fork, a garden fork has really

...