The Yorkshire Dalesman Magazine (October Issue) - Gooseberry Show

Photography by George Hutton

Words by Cameron Hill

GOOSEBERRY GROWING 

In the 1800’s, the humble gooseberry had a heyday spell as the berry to be eaten, grown, shown. Sadly, it couldn’t last. Today, they have very much fallen out of favor, unable to compete with the apples and bananas of the world. 

But, every year, they have their day again - the Egton Bridge Gooseberry Show (it’s the first Tuesday in August). 

The aim of the show is simple, to grow the heaviest gooseberry. 

To grow a prize winning berry is a cyclical feat of time and commitment. It can take decades to develop a contender. They have to be guarded by fortress-like surroundings to protect from mildew, birds, wasps, the world. If heavy sun follows heavy rain, they will burst, guts poured out onto the soil. This is high-low stakes stuff, personal commitment and the global climate all coming together in these tart-sweet-strange-hairy berries there, balancing on the judging scales. 

The show has been taking place since the pleasantly round year of 1800. That means people were growing and parading their gooseberries here before steam trains existed, before the ironstone industry put the area on the map, when Whitby was still a whaling town. And through it all, berries have been grown and shown here by the side of the Esk. 

It has seen so much, so much change, growth. A testament to what can happen when personal commitment to something as small as a gooseberry is embraced by a community. A deep-rooted part of an older countryside still growing, still flowering today.