An aerial view of Ragworth & Norton Nurseries, Darlington Lane, Ragworth c1950. 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
An aerial view of Ragworth & Norton Nurseries, Darlington Lane, Ragworth c1950.
Caulie or Cabbage On many a Sunday morning my sister Carol and I used to go down to Fewsters for the veg we were going to have for Sunday lunch, going up to the house on Ragpath Lane (which is still there opposite St Gregory’s RC School, the previously named Peter and Paul). That was great if any one was manning the Roseworth end, if not it was a walk to the end of Ragpath Lane turn left and trudge up the hill on Darlington Back Lane to the Ragworth end. All in all the fresh veg were always there on hand. Roy.
Fewsters also had a pair of semi detached houses built on the opposite side of the road and towards the junction of the Ring Road. They were situated between the Police houses and the Council Houses. Probably No”s 181 and 183.
The main entrance to Fewster”s nurseries was opposite the junction of Darlington Lane and Daventry Avenue. A house stood on the site and the entrance was just to the right as you faced this. In around 1954/56 the boundary hedging along Darlington Lane was replaced by concrete panel fencing, some of which still survives opposite the entrance to Sheraton Park.Some members of the Fewster family also lived in the detached houses on Ragpath Lane bank opposite St.Gregory”s R. C. Primary School and one had the bungalow built C1959 which faces the entrance to Sheraton Park. In the 1950s you could look out from the then Ss. Peter & Paul School and see the nursey workers pruning the roses in the field opposite, through the chain link fence.
I often walked to Fewsters from our house in Norton Avenue. I would go with my sisters to get fresh veg. and I think my Dad grew some of their roses. There were lots of great country walks, and I remember the masses of wild flowers in the fields which later became Roseworth Estate.
Thomas Fewster opened Ragworth Nurseries, on a 35 acre site near the Mile House in 1900. He also had nurseries at South Road, Norton(Drill-Hall) till 1929 boasting “The finest tomatoes in the north of England”. His “Ragworth-Beauty” tomato won many prizes, as did his “Rose and Gold Roses”. “Bringing Beauty to N.E Garden” he was selling on average 60,000 bushes a year from the 25 large greenhouses, the shortest of which was 80ft, and the longest 130ft. (1939) War-time saw all of the greenhouses but 2 used for growing food. The 2 allowed were for Fewster seed-plants and bushes. The worst damage sustained during the war was on the evening of 15th August 1941, when a stick of bombs, intended for the gun-site at Kiora fell in the adjoining field alongside the railway shattering over 65% 0f the glass. The nurseries sold part of the acreage to Fern-Park Estate in 1961 and finally closed on 25th Nov 1965, when the remaining land was sold to Bradley Builders of York, ending over 65years of market-gardening from “The Ragworth Nurseries . The land is now Woodland and Fern Park Estate.