Crab apple trees are perfect for small gardens yet they are now highly underrated, so it is often a matter of having to forage for the fruit. It can be made into a classic jelly with a very beautiful colour; Florence White gives a recipe in Good Things in England. This is Apples and Two Pears (2018) by Emily Patrick.

Quinces are enjoying a minor revival. Not only are they excellent cooked with apples and pears, they look beautiful in a bowl and can fill a room with their delicate, sweet perfume. Agnes Jekyll gives a recipe for quince jelly in Kitchen Essays and Lucy H Yates includes one for quince jam in The Country Housewife's Book. This is Quinces (1969, National Galleries of Scotland: Modern) by Eliot Hodgkin (1905-87).

This week we have autumn fruits which were once well-known but have fallen out of fashion or are difficult to find, starting with the medlar. They make a marvellous jelly, a recipe for which can be found in Jane Grigson's Fruit Book. This is Still-life with a Bowl of Medlars (1953, private collection) by Vanessa Bell (1879-1961). The largest-ever solo show of Vanessa Bell's work will open on October 19th at the MK Gallery 

The growing early C20 awareness of the importance of hygiene and exercise reached its ultimate expression in the Peckham Experiment, founded in 1926 by social biologists George Scott Williamson and Innes Hope Pearse who wanted to make progress from the conditions described in Round About a Pound a Week. The Pioneer Health Centre (1935, Sir Owen Williams) is still there but is now housing. Its design embodied new ideas about light and ventilation, promotion of a healthy lifestyle, and the prevention rather than treatment of illness. Although it closed in 1950, its influence was vast and widespread.

Municipal washhouses, known as 'steamies' in Scotland, were once vital places for doing domestic laundry and integral to many women's lives. In Glasgow alone, there were as many twenty steamies; this one is in Govanhill Public Baths (1917, Category B listed) which in 2017 had a 'Talk of the Steamie' exhibition. It, too, is closed for refurbishment but has huge local support;  the 'Save Our Pool' protest in 2001 was the longest occupation of a public building in the UK.

Moseley Road Baths (Grade II* listed) in Birmingham was built in 1907 during the period of construction of public baths that took place all over Britain in the late 19C and early 20C when many houses did not have a water supply. Locals have campaigned vigorously and successfully for its survival and have run a series of popular events - last year it was possible to book one of the slipper baths. It is currently closed for refurbishment and will re-open in 2025.

Ironmonger Row Baths (1930s, now Grade II listed) housed a public washhouse, slipper baths, swimming pools (above), and Turkish Baths. After extensive refurbishment in 2010-12, it reopened with modern facilities and a beautifully renovated 30.5m pool. (It has been suggested it was the inspiration for the run-down, council-owned Turkish Baths in the East End of London where five women meet in Nell Dunn's 1981 play, Steaming.)