1. Queen Victoria was a fan of the Sussex Trug after they caught her eye at the Great Exhibition in 1851.

She ordered a consignment for the Royal Family which was hand delivered by Thomas Smith of Herstmonceux, the inventor of the trug, who walked from his home to Buckingham Palace with a wheelbarrow full of the baskets.

2. The trug is actually a reinvention of the traditional Anglo Saxon trog – a boat shaped basket made from heavy wood until the mid 1600s.

Mr Smith carefully redesigned the trog using Sweet Chestnut and Cricket Bat Willow, making it light while also strong and sturdy – and thus the trug was born.

3. The name Royal Sussex Trug comes from Mr Smith being awarded the Royal Warrant by Queen Victoria who was so pleased with the the baskets he delivered.

4. Mr Smith attended the Exposition universelle de 1855 in Paris where he was awarded a Silver Medal and Certificate of Merit by Napoleon Bonaparte III, a descendant of the famed Napoleon, for his trugs, and this marks the first time the baskets were exported outside of the United Kingdom.

5. Two famous owners of genuine Sussex trugs include three-time academy award winner Meryl Streep and legendary French actress Catherine Deneuve. Both of which got their baskets from Thomas Smith’s Trug Shop.

Streep’s secretary’s father worked in the workshop and Deneuve bought them at a show in Courson, France.

6. During the First and Second World War, trugs were considered so important to the agricultural industry that trug-making was a reserved occupation.

This meant trug makers did not have to be called up for active service and could carry on their craft to support farmers.

Trugs are commonly used as a gardening basket now.

7. Trug making is currently on the Heritage Craft Association red list as almost extinct.

Trug makers are trying to establish a Sussex Trug heritage craft centre and are looking for apprentices to train up youngsters in the industry.

8. On average Thomas Smith’s Trug Shop at Magham Down, near Herstmonceux, makes five to six thousand trugs each year.

The most they have ever made was in the late nineties when they produced 15,001 in just one year.

9. A garden based on trug making won a gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show this year.

The aptly named Trugmaker’s Garden celebrated the historic craft and scooped the top prize in the Artisan Garden category for designers Serena Freemantle and Tina Vallis.

10. There are 35 different styles of traditional trug and ten different styles of contemporary trug.