The 1871 census for the village shows Thomas Lambert as a self employed market gardener. Thomas was born at Great Glen in 1837, his father John (b.1788) according to the 1841 census was a gardener there, living with wife Clara, they had three children and Thomas was the youngest then aged 4. In 1861 he was employed as a gardener by the Winstanley family of Braunstone Hall, big Leicestershire landowners.
Extract from the 1886 Ordnance Survey mao.
The 1871 census sees him at Littlethorpe with wife Louisa, son Thomas 9, daughters Louisa 8, and Elizabeth 5, son John aged 1. All of the children except John were born in Braunstone. John was born at Littlethorpe in 1870.
Thomas is employing two garden labourers, Astill? & John Swift aged 19 & 17 respectively. By the time of the 1881 census the Swift brothers have gone and he is being assisted by his son Thomas.
So Thomas was a market gardener in the village probably as early as 1870 when John was born, if not before. Did he establish The Vineries as a Nursery? If so did he fund it himself, a big undertaking for a humble gardener, maybe he had help, or was a tenant of his previous employers, the Winstanleys. The earliest ordnance survey map available is dated 1886, it shows The Vineries as a well planned nursery with house, outbuildings, glasshouses, and an orchard (or possibly grapevines?). Certainly this would have been some achievement for a previously employed man. His wife Louisa died at home there in 1906. Thomas died in 1921.
Son Thomas Humphrey Lambert (b.1862) at the time of the 1891 census taken on April 5th, is married to Sarah and they have a day old son, as yet un-named. He describes himself simply as gardener, so it’s difficult to know whether he continued with the nursery or not. In the next three census reports for 1901, 1911, and 1921 he describes himself as a self employed jobbing gardener. Doesn’t sound like his father, a successful market gardener does it? But was he still working from the nursery?
Lambert family headstone in Cosby cemetery.
There is a gravestone in Cosby cemetery which commemorates the Lambert family, it is pictured above.
I can’t find any other reference to the nursery until the 1939 register when Walter Riddington (b.29th November 1877 is there as a market gardener assisting his son. Walter junior born in 1902. He is there with wife Lucy and son John (b.1907), both wife and son John are employed elsewhere locally.
Walters father, Joseph Riddington (1840-1915) was born at Countesthorpe. He married Maria Williams and they had five children. By 1871 he was working as a shepherd for Thomas Wall at Littlethorpe Lodge Farm
He is still at the farm in 1881 but by 1901 he describes himself as a self employed farmer assisted by sons Walter, then aged 22, and Joseph aged 19. The farm may have been Langham Bridge Farm. The Leicester Chronicle dated 31st July 1886 refers to a meeting held in “Mr Riddingtons New Barn”.
1911 and Walter now 32 is working as a garden labourer, and married to Lucy, they had four sons one of whom was another Walter born in 1902. Walter junior married Annie Wyatt from Measham, they had three sons Norman (1929-1993), Edward, and Maurice, unfortunately the latter two didn’t survive past their first birthdays.
So Walter ran the nursery possibly until his death in 1970. Certainly as a kid growing up in 1950’s Littlethorpe it was always known as Riddingtons. Walter left £4878 in his will.
Sources:
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