Giant growers prove they are no gooseberry fools

GROWERS of giant gooseberries swapped tips and had their big berries weighed at the oldest surviving gooseberry show in the country.

Egton Bridge, eight miles from Whitby in the North York Moors National Park, is the setting for the show, which was established in 1800 and is held on the first Tuesday in August each year by the Egton Bridge Old Gooseberry Society.

The hobby of competitive gooseberry growing was popular in the late 18th and 19th centuries in the industrial areas of the north of England.

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Gooseberry shows were once popular all over the North, but declined after the First World War, dwindling from about 170 to only 20.

Now there are only two of these original societies left, one in Cheshire and the Egton Bridge Show.

Yesterday competitors gathered to fight for more than 30 titles, among them Champion Berry and Champion Grower. Previous winners have grown gooseberries as large as golf balls and weighing just short of two ounces.

Members of Egton Bridge Old Gooseberry Society hail from all over the North York Moors, from Whitby to Thirsk and Scarborough to Middlesbrough.

The berries are weighed on an old-fashioned scale which dates back to 1937 but which can weigh objects as light as a feather.