W G Hoskins, in The Making of the English Landscape (1954), has but a single mention of orchards, in his angry final chapter on the landscape today, in which he deplores, among other acts of vandalism, the destruction of ‘apple trees that are the successors of those that grew here in the time of Charles I’. Oliver Rackham refused to include orchards in The History of the Countryside (1986) because he considered them to belong to the realm of the garden and other forms of formal planting, not to the natural world (an odd omission, since the central theme of that book is that nothing in the countryside is natural – from woodland, to hedges, to fields, watercourses, and ponds, all represent the intersection between nature and culture).
Yet orchards and their fruit played an important role in the lives of early farming communities that is hard to appreciate today, say Gerry Barnes and Tom Williamson in their new book on English orchards (see ‘Further reading’ below). As John Sinclair put it (in The Code of Agriculture, published in 1818): ‘the produce of an orchard, in favourable seasons, will pay the rent of an industrious cottager’. Cider and perry formed part of the wages of day labourers and casual workers, especially at harvest time, and surplus apples might be sold to a cider-maker, or in local markets: in 1798, Randall Burroughes, a farmer at Wymondham in Norfolk, retained 15 sacks of apples from his orchard for his family’s use and sold 28 sacks in Norwich market for £8 2s 0d, making as much profit from apples as he gained from fattening and selling a bullock.
Rivers Nursery, Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, was founded in 1735 and still supplies scion wood for grafting new trees.
An apple a day keeps the landlord away
Orchard fruits made up part of the tithe payments made to a rector, vicar, or tithe owner, and when these payments began to be commuted to a cash equivalent in the 17th century, they were deemed to be the same value as a hive of bees, being thus taxed at 1d a year. Bees and orchards went together: as Ralph Austen emphasised in his A Treatise of Fruit-Trees (1653), ‘beside all the profit and pleasure that may be made of an orchard in an ordinary way, by cider, perry, sale of fruits and use of them all the year in the house, there may be another profit made of them, by the labour of the industrious bees’. Further uses for orchards not in Austen’s list included the use of prunings and dead trees as fuel, the value of the hay they provided, and their use for grazing (mainly by sheep or poultry, especially geese).
A traditional ‘tall tree’ cider orchard at Whimple, Devon.
Rent could be partly paid in apples, and vice versa: tenants were required to take good care of the orchards on the land they rented, and to ‘nourish and increase the same’. Yeomen, when drawing up their wills, frequently required their heirs to supply a widow with the produce of an orchard for the rest of her life. In 1597, John Battell, of Estwood in Essex, for example, left to Alice, his widow, ‘during her widowhood, yearly out of my orchard, six bushels of the best apples’, a bushel being equivalent to 8 gallons.
Orchards were more often grazed by sheep than taller livestock, as sheep do less damage to low-hanging branches and fruit.
Another indicator of the economic importance of orchards was inclusion of bullfinches in the list of vermin (along with crows, rooks, jackdaws, ravens, magpies, jays, red kites, and hawks) for which bounties were paid by churchwardens in order to protect crops. As recently as 1955, the Wild Birds (Bullfinches) order permitted the killing of bullfinches because of their attacks on the buds of fruit trees in spring, seriously diminishing the scale of the autumn crop. And what account of rural life in the past does not include a reference to scrumping, which appears to have been more than just a comic-book trope: human intruders stealing apples and damaging trees seems in some cases to have been as serious as any bullfinch infestation, and is one reason why orchards tended to be planted close to the house, where the owner could keep an eye on them (even if this was not always the optimum location in terms of soil and shelter from wind and frost).
Orchards as a percentage of a county’s overall area, excluding holdings of less than an acre.
Orchards were, in short, valued for a multiplicity of purposes much like (say the authors) the olive groves of the Mediterranean. They go on to select three principal English regions where orchards – both farmhouse and commercial – have been a dominant landscape feature in the past: western England, the south-east, and East Anglia.
A West Country cider-apple orchard at Burghill, Herefordshire.
Cider Country
The authors characterise western England as ‘cider country’, and they include Monmouthshire, which at various times has been considered part of England and part of Wales, especially around Raglan. Here, in A Tour through South Wales and Monmouthshire (1803), J T Barber describes ‘teeming orchards sweeping over hills’.
Contemporary records show that manorial lords and monastic institutions were receiving a significant income from the production and sale of cider from the 14th century, partly through the monopoly they enjoyed by forcing their tenants to use the manorial cider press. The documentary evidence suggests that the scale of cider production expanded steadily though subsequent centuries, as evidenced by the growing number of leases that refer to the establishment or maintenance of orchards as a tenancy condition, and the increasingly common references in probate inventories to stores of fruit, cider, and cider mills.
A cider mill in 14th-century Leigh Court Barn, Worcestershire. Horses were used to move the great stone ‘runner’ round the trough to crush apples and extract juice.
In 1757, Dean Jeremiah Milles conducted a survey of agriculture in the parishes of the Exeter Diocese, and from the returns it can be estimated that typically around 2 per cent of the land area consisted of orchards – about twice the average for the rest of England – with one parish (Paignton) having 6.8 per cent of its total area under fruit trees, and a further 14 parishes with between 3 and 5 per cent. These figures do not include the large numbers of free-standing fruit trees planted in hedges. Several 17th-century writers comment on the abundance of such hedgerow trees in the counties of Devon, Somerset, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and Shropshire.
Mistletoe is a feature of many old orchards, providing food for birds and a dozen rare invertebrate species, including the mistletoe marble moth.
Tythe maps show the steady increase in orchards through the 19th century in all parts of the West Country, responding, perhaps, to the growth in population and the demand for cider in such towns as Bristol, Hereford, and Exeter. As a result, typically between 5 and 10 per cent of the land in some parishes was being used for growing fruit – and, until the passing of the Truck Amendment Act of 1887, cider was routinely used to pay part of the wages of agricultural labourers. The manorial monopoly on cider mills had largely been replaced by the mid-17th century with mills, presses, and buildings to house them attached to most large farmhouses, and small producers used their neighbours’ equipment or hired a mobile press.
Tewin Orchard, in Hertfordshire, looks ancient but was planted in 1938. It is now carefully managed as a wildlife reserve by Hertfordshire and Middlesex Wildlife Trust. Image: Judith Dainty
In addition to cider (and perry), West Country orchards produced other kinds of fruit, with Gloucestershire’s Severn Vale and parts of Worcestershire famed from the 19th century for dessert apples and pears, and for cherries and plums, some of which were transported via canal and river to markets in Bristol and the Midlands, and used for jam-production, bottling, or canning. Key to the latter development was the investment made by Lord Sudeley on his Toddington estate (Gloucestershire) in fruit trees, a jam factory, and a tramway to move the fruit; and by Sudeley’s neighbour, the Earl of Coventry, who established a factory at Pershore (Worcestershire) to process fruit from his tenants’ orchards.
A ‘bush-pruned’, open-centred Bramley’s Seedling tree in an old orchard in the East Anglian Fens. Image: Bob Lever
Just desserts in the south-east
By contrast with the west, the orchards of south-eastern England were pre-eminent in producing culinary and dessert apples, pears, plums, cherries, and cobnuts (interplanted with strawberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries, raspberries, and even vegetable crops) thanks to a combination of suitable soils and proximity to London markets. This was true as far back as the 16th century, especially of Kent, but the 100 years between 1850 and 1950 saw what Gerry Barnes and Tom Williamson describe as ‘the orchard century’, marked by a ‘phenomenal expansion’. This was fuelled by rapid population growth, rising incomes, the advent of the railways, and the emergence of new food-processing industries, but also by the agricultural depression of the 1870s, when cheap imported grain, in particular, forced farmers to diversify.
Railway companies made much of the ease with which fruit-producers could now convey their fruit to the London market and, in return, obtain manure and compostable materials from London, as well as artificial fertilisers. Expansion was especially associated with large commercial orchards, though farm orchards continued to be important. And whereas apples destined for cider need not be in top condition, dessert fruit required intensive management, with substantial inputs of labour and materials – not least provided by working-class families from London flocking to the orchards for the fruit harvest.
Commercial orchards like this one at Tiptree, in Essex, depended on a large body of seasonal workers, most of whom were women. Image: Tiptree Heritage Centre
The orchards of Kent loom large in the popular imagination, but there were other parts of the south-east that developed local specialities. The well-drained but moisture-retentive soils of the Chilterns, from Oxfordshire to Hertfordshire, enabled the production of sweet black dessert cherries, distinct from the red morello cooking cherries of Kent. Orchards in the Vale of Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire, specialised in the production of plums and damsons used for cooking and as a dessert fruit. In particular, they were known for damsons called ‘Aylesbury Prunes’ (different from the dried plums that we now call prunes).
This was a region of institutional orchards, too, some of them attached to boarding schools, some to work-houses, and some to asylums for people with mental health problems, such as the Bethlem Hospital, in Beckenham, south London. Such enterprises were largely self-supporting and not designed to be profitable, essentially combining the therapeutic value of fresh air and ‘interesting employment’ with the provision of ‘free’ ingredients to the institutional kitchen. On the other hand, the large Home Farm Colony, established in 1891 by the Salvation Army at Hadleigh, just west of Southend, was run as a commercial enterprise until the 1930s, providing food, lodgings, employment, and training in ‘useful work’ to ‘any man who is willing to work, irrespective of nationality or creed’. About 400 ‘colonists’ took up the offer each year, and were then helped to find employment elsewhere, with a number migrating to Canada.
An old ‘traditional’ farmhouse orchard in Norfolk, with tall ‘veteran’ trees. In this case the trees have been ’headed’ at a height of just under 2m, creating a pollarded appearance.
East Anglia and the ‘orchard century’
East Anglia and the Fens formed the third major area for fruit-production, with a long history of small farm orchards, though the region’s subsequent growth to become one of the most important regions in England for apples and plums is largely a result of the ‘orchard century’, when the emergence of food-processing facilities in the region stimulated growth, especially in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, and later in Essex and Suffolk.
Gaymer’s Cider Factory, erected in 1897 alongside the railway line at Attleborough, Norfolk.
A notable instance of early production was the investment made by Clement Chevallier, who came from Jersey to Aspall Hall, north of Debenham in Suffolk. By supplementing local apples with new varieties that he imported from the Channel Islands and Normandy, Chevallier began commercial cider production as early as 1728, selling to inns and private individuals throughout the region at a time when most cider-production was destined for local consumption. The business that Chevallier founded continues to be a dominant brand, albeit after a period of decline, followed by a significant revival in the decades prior to the First World War.
An espalier-trained apple tree in the gardens of The Vyne, Hampshire.
Exploiting the products of East Anglia’s market gardens and orchards, the 19th century also saw the establishment of such brands as Chivers (founded in Histon, Cambridgeshire, in 1873, and growing to be the UK’s largest canner of fruits and vegetables by 1931); cider -maker Gaymer (founded in 1896 at Attleborough, and now based in Shepton Mallet, Somerset); and Wilkin & Sons Ltd (originally the Britannia Fruit Preserving Company, founded in 1885). The last of the three is best known for its Tiptree jams, named after the Essex village south-west of Colchester where the company is based.
A declining harvest
After the growth that characterises the orchard century, the 1950s saw the beginning of a reduction in the land area in England dedicated to fruit-growing and the slow disappearance of large orchards from the landscape. This had little to do with competition from overseas imports, the authors say. Instead, they point to the growing difficulty in recruiting sufficient numbers of seasonal and casual labourers to work in this labour-intensive sector, including individuals skilled in pruning. Another factor was the fall in the number of small independent grocers buying from local wholesale fruiterers, as large supermarket chains increased their market dominance from the mid-1960s. Governments have played a part too, by seeking to improve the quality of English fruit by reducing ‘as a matter of urgency’ the number of varieties of apple grown to those perceived to be least prone to disease, pests, and blemishes.
Ornamental apple trees at Hanbury Hall, Worcestershire.
Meanwhile, other factors were at work which led to the decline of ‘traditional’ farm orchards. Mixed farming began to give way to a more limited range of specialist activities, and farm orchards were increasingly neglected by owners who lacked the time or inclination to manage the trees and pick the fruit, especially when fresh fruit was available without the effort from greengrocers and supermarkets. To encourage more profitable use of the land occupied by orchards, the government gave grants in the 1960s to encourage the grubbing up of ‘derelict orchards’ (older than five years) that were ‘no longer capable of bearing a crop worth marketing’.
Comprehensive data on the impact of these changes is lacking, but small-scale studies suggest that up to 70 per cent of farm and commercial orchards were lost between the 1960s and 1990s. That figure would have been higher but for the planting of new orchards, especially in Herefordshire, in response to a significant increase in industrial cider production by Bulmers, Gaymer, and others, accompanied by energetic advertising campaigns and the availability of cider on draught in pubs.
These attempts to ‘modernise’ British agriculture, which included the draining of wetlands, the filling in of ponds, the ploughing and reseeding of ancient meadows, the removal of hedges, and the widescale use of insecticides, herbicides, and artificial fertilisers, led to a reaction from conservationists, and the ‘Save Our Orchards’ campaign began in 1988, followed by the first ‘Apple Day’ in October 1990.
A selection of the 100-plus varieties of apple grown at Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse, in Norfolk, displayed and labelled for the annual Apple Day held in mid-October.
Community groups have since been formed to manage traditional orchards: for example, the Three Counties Traditional Orchard Project was set up to train volunteers in practical orchard skills and to restore 34 orchards in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire. Since 2006, ‘traditional orchards’ have been included as important wildlife habitats in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. This year (2024), the Royal Horticultural Society and Bristol University’s School of Biological Sciences announced a project to search for ‘survivor varieties’ – lost or rare apple cultivars – and to look for genetic traits that can help the fruit survive climate change.
Rose-tinted glasses?
Reflecting on the long history of English orchards, and in particular their cultural and landscape importance, Gerry Barnes and Tom Williamson point to a number of paradoxes and contradictions. First, there is the romantic affection that we have for old orchards, which we deem to be ‘traditional’. In fact, what we are celebrating is the derelict orchard. When managed for their fruit in the past, dead wood and prunings were removed, destined for the fireplace in the fuel-hungry world of the past, rather than being left for the benefit of wildlife. It is unlikely that windfalls would have been allowed to accumulate to provide a feast for winter birds. Only when under-managed and under-used with a significant proportion of decaying trees do orchards become ideal for wildlife conservation, and that would have struck our ancestors as an odd way to manage an orchard.
A typical modern orchard near Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, characterised by low-growing and bare earth below for ease of pest and herbicide control. Image: Alamy Photos
That is not intended to be an anti-conservation message, but rather to introduce a note of realism into our understanding of orchard history and to reject a simple linear narrative of traditional orchards in decline to be replaced by modern intensive commercial ones. There have been many different kinds of orchard in the past, variously used and not all conducive to the maintenance of biodiversity.
Equally, the authors point out that not all orchards are the long-established and enduring component of English landscape character that we imagine when we refer to them as ‘traditional’ and ‘ancient’. Many are the result of relatively recent commercial activity. ‘Like the streets of terraced houses in our major cities,’ they say, ‘they are a product of the great industrial and economic expansion of the Victorian and Edwardian ages’.
A modern intensively managed orchard near Burghill, Herefordshire, with close-set trees on dwarfing rootstock, backed by a poplar shelter belt.
On the other hand, within living memory, orchards were once encountered at every turn in some counties, and it only takes a visit to the parts of Herefordshire that are still rich in orchards of diverse types and sizes (for example, the parish of Burghill) to appreciate the scale of the loss. In a country that was once full of orchards, the absence of orchards constitutes ‘a profound severance from the recent past’. Old orchards are therefore worth conserving on a significant scale for the many benefits they provide, as long as it is understood that orchard conservation depends on human intervention and a fine balance between management and neglect. Orchards illustrate just one of the ways in which natural and human history are deeply interconnected, a fact that is not often recognised in the professional divide between ‘cultural’ and ‘natural’ heritage (and, indeed, between agricultural policy and conservation).
Further reading: Gerry Barnes and Tom Williamson (2022) English Orchards: a landscape history (Windgather Press, ISBN 978-1914427190, £34.99).
All images: Gerry Barnes and Tom Williamson, unless otherwise stated
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