AFICIONADOS of the humble spud are being given the chance to try them as they used to be.

The garden at Ripon Workhouse Museum has been carefully restored by a team of dedicated volunteers to how it would have been in the 1890s and specialises in growing crops of fruit and vegetables from that era using traditional methods.

This year’s bumper crop of potatoes are British Queen - an old variety first listed in 1894 but now only grown in small quantities in the UK.

Usually he museum collaborates with a local restaurant, Lockwoods, who uses produce from the garden to put old varieties back on the menu – but because of the success of this year’s crop there are now plenty of spare potatoes for visitors to sample for free.

In Victorian times the workhouse rules were strict and paupers were deployed doing jobs which contributed to the successful and cost effective running of the workhouse including gardening.

Head gardener Nick Thompson said: “The exotic crops grown in the country house gardens would not be in the workhouse diet so the garden was not to provide dainty morsels but solid, plain fare.

“A garden of this size for a grand house would have lots of gardeners, at various points of their training, directed by a head gardener. The workhouse had varying numbers of workers, of little training, possibly little motivation, under the guidance of a master who may have little knowledge.”