Origins of historic Rose Show which still blooms a century on

February can be a miserable month. Lotta rain; lotta colds. So, lie back and think of Summer.

No, not tropical beaches, but the Colchester Rose Show.

Forget the Romans, forget their oysters, forget the fastest growing town in Britain, Colchester was once famous, not judt for that, but for flowers. And for fruit. This is because of our dry, sunny summers and rich, sandy soil.

Our Dutch connection brought us tulips. Morant’s History of Colchester, published 1748, declared that Henry Stow, the Lexden miller, who grew tulips, also grew the finest primulas (auriculas) in the British Dominions – which then included America.

In the 1750s Stow developed new varieties of this fashionable flower and grew them in a large public garden situated between the present site of Jumbo and the Hole in the Wall pub.

A century later Colchester was famous for lilies, imported as bulbs direct from a Japanese island by the Bunting family.

But Colchester’s star plant was the rose. Particularly fine ones were grown at Lexden Park, then a large private estate.

Here in 1818 roamed Caroline Applebee of Crouch Street whose 323 paintings of rare and exotic flowers are now held by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

More celebrated was Elizabeth Twining, daughter of the famous tea merchant, whose two volume Illustrations of Plants, also involved visits to Lexden.

Her uncle, a local vicar, developed the famous Twining Pippin apple.

Another fruit specialist was William Cant.

His 40 acre nursery behind St John’s Street grew nectarines, apricots and peaches in the 1790s.

His grandson, Ben Cant, best known as a cricketer, saw in 1853 the new type of ‘standard’ rose and made the bold decision to produce and improve them himself.

It transformed this most remarkable family business.

By the 1880s Ben Cant was the most famous rose grower in Britain, indeed in the English speaking world.

As breeder of several spectacular new strains, he won the National Rose Challenge Cup 10 times in 19 years. Twice he got to keep the cup by winning it three years running. By railway and steamship he exported roses all over the world.

The Cants were a considerable clan, who fielded their own cricket team. Most came into the business, taught its mysteries by Ben, with this important rule – keep the secrets in the family. But one of Ben’s nephews, Frank, broke rank and set up on his own, winning national trophies in the years that Ben did not.

So many letters came to the Post Office in Head Street addressed to ‘Cants of Colchester’ they even printed a special postcard saying, ‘do you mean Ben Cant & Son or Frank Cant & Co?

It is hardly surprising that Colchester had a Rose Show when beds in front of the Castle became full of Cant’s Roses.

But the Colchester Rose Show had (pardon the pun) far older roots.

Gardening was so popular in Colchester that in 1828 a Colchester & Essex Botanical and Horticultural Society set up a garden and arboretum at the top of East Hill.

This is now covered by Roman and Castle Road.

They soon held twice yearly flower and vegetable shows with the June Show favouring roses.

But bad weather and public indifference led the old Botanical Society to wind up. Their last show was in 1890.

It was revived in 1894 by Charles Benham, who with his brother owned the Essex County Standard, and by Colchester’s youthful mayor, Claude Egerton-Green, who lived opposite Castle Park.

They renamed it the Colchester Rose and Horticultural Society and called the June event, the Rose Show.

It was now held in large marquees in Castle Park, recently purchased for the public and laid out (of course) by Ben Cant.

Over the next 80 years the three days of the Colchester Rose Show in Castle Park became as famous and big an event as the Oyster Feast or the St George’s Day Parade, but costs by the 1990s made it hard to maintain, especially when by-laws forbade taking money in Castle Park on Sundays.

In 1995 the Rose Show ceased. It had lasted 100 years.

Happily, in 2004 it revived, linked to what has become a new Colchester institution, the Food & Drink Festival.

With 14 enormous silver cups and shields up for grabs, and up to 30 categories to enter, the Rose Show is truly back.

So, put this date your diary: Colchester Rose Show, Food & Drink Festival, Saturday June 23 to Sunday June 24.

And it is also now backed, of course, by the Gazette and its sister paper the Essex County Standard which came up with the idea some 124 years ago.