I have never been too partial with green food with the possible exception of peas and lime ice cream. Watercress as a food item has thus passed me by. But the watercress beds in Alresford were quite another matter. That they were used to grow watercress in was to me more of a nuisance and at best a bye-product.
The beds that my past were entwined with are along the Little Weir (extension of Mill Hill) and are visible from Google Maps Streeview and in the pictures below (not my own).
These two pictures are both recent. They are looking back from very close to the first ram pump location (which is behind the camera) in my previous post and looking towards Mill Hill and Alresford proper. The Great Weir is on the left. The footpath to the right is the Little Weir. The beds are demarcated by low concrete walls and fed from the river on the left. Note the gap in the foreground of the top picture - the groves either side allow wooden slats to be inserted to control the water flow. The amazing thing is that these concrete walls - and that gap in particular - look exactly as I remember them some 50 years ago. We (my sister and I) used to jump over the gaps and wall along the walls. It was something one had to do every time one was taken on this particular walk.
Thankfully the owners generally turned a blind eye to our escapades. Of course we were careful to respect their property. It has always been my principle to respect another person's property when I trespass on it, and I firmly hold to this day that trespassing is not an offence unless damage is done. My understanding is that such behaviour is upheld in English law. If a land owner expressly wants privacy then it is their duty to erect a suitable child-proof fence. It is of course foundational to the working of the web of public rights-of-way (footpaths, tracks, bridlepaths) that criss-cross the English countryside sometimes to the aggravation of the landowner. This principle is another reason why I would find living in America so difficult where, it appears, the landowner has the right to kill you simple because you accidentally set a foot on his land. Here in Ireland the attitude is subtly different - for insurance reasons and because apparently the Irish will sue at any opportunity, land owners are very wary of trespassers. If you ask permission to cross a neighbour's land the answer will invariably be "no - but if you hadn't asked then it would have been alright". Therefore the thing to do is to make sure no one sees you trespassing, and certainly not to draw attention to it, and then nobody will mind at all. Here in Ireland there are also far fewer rights-of-way across people's land and I find this hard: I long for the English system. Thankfully I live close enough to the Wicklow mountains where you can generally walk freely.
Coming back to the watercress beds - some of the gaps had a wooden plank "bridge" over them and I can distinctly remember when I found the owners had tacked some new looking chicken wire over the plank to give some grip and thinking what a good idea this was, although also thinking it was an overkill because wasn't part of the fun being wary of the slippery surface?
On one occasion my grandfather 'Ginty' was taking me on this walk "round the river" - my sister was not, I think, with me on this occasion. I did my usual wall expedition and fell off and drenched my (short) trousers and must have come back to Ginty wailing, for I remember him calmly telling me not to worry - I was not hurt, I had only made my 'pants' wet. Obviously I was expecting him to be angry, for I remember immediately becoming calm and forever after I have blessed him for the way he dealt with the situation.
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