The plant’s heyday was during the Victorian period when the development of the railway allowed tons of the plant to be transported up to Covent Garden Market.
• One watercress seller who made good was Eliza James, who as a child of five hawked wild bunches of watercress around factories in Birmingham, but who later earned the nickname of “The Watercress Queen” because of her near monopoly on the London watercress restaurant and hotel trade.