The Rivers Exhibition at the Hertfordshire Archive

Written by Elizabeth Waugh
Published on December 18, 2025.

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From founding in 1725 to decline and final closing in the early 1980s, Rivers Nursery was owned and directed by one ambitious family. Yet no family member has written a detailed family history and only the sketchiest of company descriptions, such as might fit within the preface to a catalogue of stock, was produced. The most creative of directors, the third Thomas, 1798-1877, did much writing (see the RHSO archives for some examples) as he described his innovative ideas for growing fruit and corresponded with others such as Darwin in the search to develop a science of production. We know he kept notes on methods as articles by others in the great horticultural journals of the nineteenth century tell us. However, it seems that no one tried to systematically save such thinking or business papers or family stories. (See Rivers Nursery of Sawbridgeworth - available to buy from RHSO)

As the Sawbridgeworth community watched with great unease, when the sell off of the large land holdings began in earnest and quite suddenly, amid family disagreement, the effort seems to have been to get rid of stuff including historic documents, illustrations, printing blocks, sales documents, correspondence etc, rather than select and save.

Thus, when Tony Slingsby, the last manager - unauthorised he told me during our discussions - rescued and transported a pile of materials to the Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies (HALS) where they were given the usual careful cataloguing and preservation, these became a precious resource for historians. A slim paper trail. Other materials only quite randomly became available such as when local families whose members had worked at Rivers or those who bought Rivers products thought to offer something to our local Rivers archive (the paper archive is available in the Sawbridgeworth Town Council buildings, and some available electronically on the RHSO website).

Now for December, 2025, after various discussions over the year between Sue Flood and me and eventually Sarah Kerrison of HALS, a Rivers exhibition has gone up in a glass vitrine in the foyer. It consists of various materials from the County Archive chosen by Sue and me and set in place by Sarah. In a further exploration of Rivers history, I was asked to give a talk at HALS. The point of such an exhibition and talk is to show how important the Archive can be in showing the actuality of an evanescent present as it suddenly becomes a lost but missed past. Hooray for the exhibition and the efforts of Sarah and Sue! It’s great to see this history being held fast.



Sarah Kerrison beside the display. Poster for my Talk.

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