Book Reviews Book 18

Book Reviews
Book 18

The Story of Lavender

By Sally Festing

pub. Heritage in Sutton Leisure (2nd Edn. 1989).

This is a unique and well-researched book 133-paged book tracing English lavender's history, cultivation and industry, and giving a very informative account of the lavender trade's rise and fall in the UK. The study contains so much original material which is a delight to read - detailed accounts of many of the original principle lavender growers and companies, set out in such a way as to include fascinating anecdotes and stories of many of the personalities involved.

Background to the circumstances in which lavender fields once stood - at Carshalton, Beddington, Mitcham, Wallington, Sutton, Hitchin etc. - are to be found, together with profiles of lavender distilling companies such as Potters & Moore. It is a credit to Sally Festing, who I believe is a librarian, that she has been able to unearth so much about this part of our ethno-botanical heritage and agro-industrial culture.

The demise of the Mitcham lavender oil growers is described - seemingly they unwisely chose varieties which contained camphor, and this lead to the exclusion of these particular oils from high class perfumery use. Subsequently, disease reduced the crop size and let in cheaper, but inferior, French lavender oils as is described in the book. Remarking on this, I particularly warmed to the account on page 68 from the Brighton-based pharmaceutical chemist and lavender grower J. Ch. Sayer, who complained that as far as lavender oil was concerned, the public would buy anything cheap, irrespective of quality. So times have not changed then!

I really have not done justice to this excellent book in these few lines - there is a wealth of material here including lavenders place in folk law, botany and early history. The text is profusely illustrated throughout with many plates and pictures. It is fascinating to look at the period shots of the men gathering the cut lavender in the fields dressed in their waistcoats and rolled up shirtsleeves, or to gaze at plates (page 60) where senior company partners (both smoking cigarettes) watch an employee pouring out the distilled lavender oil into pots. The next shot tracks the same partners to the laboratory, where one of the intrepid pair - still wearing a cap and still with a 'ciggie' between his lips, inspects the quality of the oil in a glass vessel! Absolutely wonderful cameos of a former way of life!

Photographs reproduced with kind permission from William Ransom Ltd.

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