This is a strong sign that cultivation must have been confined to certain localities, chiefly in the eastern counties, though in the west it was grown at Hereford and surrounding districts to a very considerable extent. I do not mean to imply that none was grown in neighbouring counties, but the evidence is not easy to get, and I have not gone deeply enough into the subject to find it, but the Saffron of Hereford was famed.
At Black Marston in Herefordshire, in 1506 and again in 1528, leave was granted by the Prioress of Acornbury, to persons to cultivate Saffron extensively.
In 1582, in spite of a continued demand for it, the cultivation of Saffron seems to have decreased, for Hakluyt writes in his “Remembrances for Master S.” [what to observe in a journey he is about to undertake]. “Saffron groweth in Syria.... But if a vent might be found, men would in Essex (about Saffron Walden) and in Cambridgeshire, revive the trade for the benefit of setting the poore on worke. So would they do in Herefordshire by Wales, where the best of all Englande is, in which place the soil yields the wilde “Saffron” commonly.” The soil there still yields the wilde Saffron so commonly that at the present moment it is regarded with disfavour, as being quite a drawback to some pasture lands, but it is no longer grown there for commercial purposes. Neither Gerarde (1596) nor Parkinson (1640) mention Saffron-growing as an industry, but in 1681 “I. W.” gives directions for cultivating and drying it. “English Saffron,” he says, “is esteemed the best in the world; it’s a plant very suitable to our climate and soil.” At Saffron Walden it continued to be grown for commerce for over two hundred years, but has now been uncultivated in that locality for more than a century. In Cambridgeshire, however, it flourished to a later date, and the last Saffron grower in England was a man named Knot, who lived at Duxford in Cambridgeshire, and who grew Saffron till the year 1816.
This is Turner’s advice for cultivating it.
When harvest is gone,
Then Saffron comes on.
A little of ground,
Brings Saffron a pound.
The pleasure is fine,
The profit is thine.
Keep colour in drying,
Well used, worth buying.
And also:—
Pare Suffron between the two St Mary’s days[51]
Or set or go shift it, that knoweth the ways...
In having but forty foot, workmanly dight
Take Saffron enough for a lord or a knight.
August’s Husbandry.
From old records it seems to have been grown in small patches of less than an acre, and to have been a most profitable crop. “I. W.,” in his directions says, for drying it, “a small kiln made of clay, and with a very little Fire, and that with careful attendance,” is required. “Three Pounds thereof moist usually making one of dry. One acre may bear from seven to fifteen Pound, and hath been sold from 20s. a Pound to £5 a Pound.” The last price sounds as if it existed only in his imagination, and one cannot really think that it was given often! But on one occasion, Timbs says, an even higher sum was reached, for when Queen Elizabeth paid a visit to Saffron Walden, the Corporation paid five guineas for one pound of Saffron to present to her. Though this was exceptional, the usual prices for it were very high; and to show this, and also the enormous amount that was used in cooking, Miss Amherst quotes from some old accounts of the Monastery of Durham: “In 1531, half a pound of ‘Crocus’ or Saffron was bought in July, the same quantity in August and in November, a quarter of a pound in September, and a pound and a half in October.” So much for the quantity; as to the price, a merchant of Cambridgeshire charged them in 1539-1540 for 6½ lbs. Crocus, £7, 8s.