Martin Slocock
Martin talks about the growth of local nurseries

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It was known as Goldsworth Nursery and the history goes back to 1760, when the nursery was started, originally I think by a chap called Turner who went through rather difficult times in the early nineteenth century. It wasn’t until my grandfather, Walter Charles, decided he wanted to be a nurseryman, came here to Knaphill Nursery to learn the trade of horticulture under, I think it was then Gomer Waterer. After training there he went abroad and trained a bit more on the continent and then came back in to the nursery and took it over in 1887. From then on it was one long success story.

When he died it was already a very flourishing business and using a lot of other local nurseries to supply young stock to him, and the story goes that he would ride round, not only in the nursery but also the locality, particularly West End and Chobham, on his large grey horse, his white horse, and when all those small nurserymen were getting rather short of money in the spring, he used to give them handouts to keep them loyal on the understanding they would supply him in the autumn, so it was a very symbiotic relationship. He was helping them out financially; they, in turn, helped him out because they grew all his young stock

There was a time shortly after my grandfather died when Woking grew probably nearly a half of the trees and shrubs raised in the whole of the United Kingdom. It was by far Woking’s largest industry and largest source of employment. That was the source of its prosperity before the railway came in and the proximity of London meant that there are other places to go to work but otherwise they worked on nurseries. It was a really labour-intensive occupation anyway, prior to mechanisation and weed-killing. When I joined the nursery we employed 120 people; before that there were 200 or 300. These were not seasonal workers, they were permenantly employed. We bought and built quite a lot of houses so a lot of our staff were actually living on the land or in Woking.

I had the Chobham end which was mainly growing fruit, and also had a large agricultural holding. That's where we fattened all our 200 beef. They all had to come up to Woking on railway trucks. We drove them, literally up the Goldsworth Road. We're talking of the late ’50s and early ’60s. I mean, imagine driving cattle up the Goldsworth Road now!