ONE of Cheshire's largest heritage attractions has turned the clock back more than a century with the recreation of a tasty slice of its own lost history. The reopening of Tatton Park's restored six-acre walled gardens provided the last piece of a historical jigsaw that makes up the complete English Country House Estate. It transported Tatton back to the 'salad' days of Victoria and Edward when the Egertons, their guests and an army of estate workers were fed from the fruit of their own labours. And fashionable house parties in the Neo Classical mansion house - now host to around 750,000 visitors each year - were perfumed with the fragrance of home-grown cut blooms and pot plants from the same source. In its heyday, Tatton's six and a half acres of walled kitchen gardens yielded tons of exotic and domestic fruit and vegetables ranging from potatoes, peaches and pineapples to oranges and orchids. The loss of many of its 30 gardeners to the Great War, and the last Lord Egerton's lonely batchelorhood prompted the decline of the walled gardens and their impressive array of glasshouses and related buildings. But earlier this month, county council chairman Nora Dolphin - performing the last function of her civic year - effectively rolled back the years when she re-opened the refurbished gardens. She said: 'Tatton's walled gardens will provide living history and a revival of fast-disappearing skills that will have major implications for local tourism, education and horticultural conservation. 'We are turning back the clock to days when the closest thing to mechanisation was a horse and cart, and the produce of kitchen gardens had tastes and flavours that most of us can barely remember.' And she added: 'Probably unique, this project will compliment some of the most glorious floral gardens in England.' A £1.3m Heritage Lottery Grant has helped Cheshire County Council, the National Trust and the National Gardens Scheme to fund the first phase of a unique project which is already attracting national interest. The vegetable and fruit gardens, revitalised with manure from Tatton's farm, are growing a vast array of produce again; tomato, orchid and fig houses have all been rebuilt to the original designs, together with a peach case. Already the orchid house - based on the 19th century 'state of the art' original - boasts colourful and rare collections donated by members of the British Orchid Growers Association and the North of England Orchid Society. Support buildings provide a mushroom house, onion loft, grape and fruit stores. Garden and education rooms will stage courses teaching social history and will help to perpetuate traditional horticultural skills. Simon Tetlow - formerly gardener at the National Trust's 16th century Benthall Hall in Telford - was recruited to supervise operations in January 2001. He now heads a team of three full-timers, aided by a score of enthusiastic volunteers - gardening literally 'by the book' - The Gardeners' Companion to be exact - a horticultural bible in six volumes, first penned in 1859 by the green-fingered William Watson, later curator at Kew Gardens. Within Tatton's distinctive Cheshire brick walls - some sections can be heated to aid propagation - little of the produce that is grown dates after 1911. Seeds are obtained or exchanged with other heritage special-ists, boosting the conservation of other threatened species. Growing among the hundreds of different varieties of fruit and vegetables - many local - are The Costard, an apple introduced by the Romans, Golden Ball, a local Napoleonic War Turnip, and Timperley Early, a rhubarb dating from the same era. 'Interest from the public has been amazing,' said Simon. 'For so many the gardens provide a nostalgic trip down memory lane. I've lost count of the people who have told us that the flavour and smell of our produce evokes memories of their childhood.' The 2,000-acre Tatton Park Estate was bequeathed to the National Trust by the fourth and last Lord Egerton in 1958. In the absence of any maintenance endowment, Cheshire County Council stepped in to fund and manage the historic legacy, a responsibility that Cheshire maintains to this day. | 
