Imagine a design that would work equally well for holding a boiled egg, displaying flowers, measuring horse feed or giving a dog somewhere to sleep.

Sussex trugs can be used for all of these things - and they can last for up to 50 years.

An upsurge of interest - partly due to television gardner Alan Titchmarsh - has now given the industry a new lease of life.

Trugs - boat-shaped baskets made from chestnut and willow strips - have been part of life in Sussex for more than 200 years.

The word trug comes from the Saxon word trog, which means a trough or boat-shaped vessel.

Originally they were designed for agricultural use, measuring cattle feed, bagging grain, feeding chickens and harvesting.

But advances in agriculture hit truggery hard. Gradually trug-making workshops - mainly scattered between Herstmonceux and East Hoathly - began to disappear.

Now there are only a few places left.

Sarah Page owns The Truggery in Coopers Croft, a village near Herstmonceux.

She fell in love with the craft five years ago and was determined to keep the art thriving in its native town.

Sarah knew farmers now had machines for all the tasks they once used a trug for, and admitted to some worry about whether she could keep The Truggery in business.

But lifestyle programmes on television and an upsurge of interest in gardening has given the trug industry a new lease of life.

Alan Titchmarsh is the proud owner of a half-bushel trug which can be seen regularly on his programmes.

Sarah said: "Americans are mad about them. They just love them, and they'll buy five or six at a time."

Trugs are also popular in Japan, where the Sussex design has been widely copied.

"But the proper trug is unique to Sussex. It takes years to learn the craft and making them is very time-consuming," Sarah said.

A skilled craftsman can make around ten trugs a day, but the whole process from cutting down the wood to displaying the finished article can take more than a year.

"Willow and chestnut is used because it is local to the region. The majority of the chestnut comes from the woods outside Herstmonceux Castle and it is used for the handle and frame."

Both kinds of wood have to be left to season before they can be used.

The wood is put in a steamer so it can be bent and moulded into shape. Sarah said: "The steamer comes from the East Hoathly works. I don't even know how old it is, it's ancient."

The modern-day trug, with its carrying handle and feet, probably dates back to the Victorians when Thomas Smith registered his truggery business in Herstmonceux.

His trugs were shown at the Great Exhibition in 1851 - much to the delight of Queen Victoria, who snapped up a batch for the royal household.

According to Sarah: "The story goes that he finished the baskets with silver nails and took them to London in a wheelbarrow, trusting no-one else to do the job."