When Chatsworth went bananas

or all its rigid class structures and prejudices, the 19th century was a time when native talent, recognised and supported by a wealthy and influential patron, could blossom from obscure rural beginnings and go on to great achievement. Joseph Paxton, born the seventh son of a modest family that farmed at Milton Bryan, in Bedfordshire, was a classic example. Young Paxton showed an enterprising spirit from an early age, launching his quest for employment with a cheeky deception: he declared himself to have been born in 1801, two years earlier than his real birth year. As a result, he was taken on as a gardener’s boy at Battlesden Park, near Woburn, seat of Sir Gregory Osborne Page-Turner, when he was only 15. During the next five years, he absorbed every scrap of knowledge that a country-house garden could impart, before going on to apply successfully for employment at the Horticultural Society’s gardens in Chiswick. Close by was Chiswick