Agricultural History Review, Volume 70 Part 2 (2022), p. 324

This book presents research from the ‘Orchards East’ project (2017–20), funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which explores the history and ecology of orchards in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. The authors, Tom Williamson and Gerry Barnes, examine the historical, ecological and commercial background, the impact of industrialization and the subsequent destruction of orchards and their potential future in an unsentimental, constructive way, evidencing extensive archival research and practical exercises.

Orchards have a rich and diverse history and a regional and national significance which has rarely been the subject of academic study. More readily associated with the western and south-western counties, an enduring image of the quintessential English orchard is one of ancient trees, with delightful blossom in spring and later in the season heavy with fruit, bathed in the golden light of an autumn afternoon, a symbol of enduring abundance. While orchards do reflect the changing seasons and cycle of life in the natural world, the popular, nostalgic image belongs to a Merrie England which never existed, a mythical paradise lost. And rather than being ancient trees, the maximum lifespan of an apple tree is approximately 120 years, a cherry tree 80 years and a plum tree only 60 years, and ‘old’ fruit varieties do not date back to time immemorial. These and other myths are gently but steadily debunked throughout the book, the authors acknowledging that this may be unwelcome to some.

Once common features of the English landscape, orchards have not been studied as distinctive and significant wooded areas. The point is made that ‘orchards, while sometimes described as “semi-natural habitats”, inhabit the world of culture more than that of nature’. Farmhouse and country-house orchards, commercial enterprises, orchards attached to institutions such as colleges and hospitals, the recent heritage and community orchards, all owe their existence to human agency, in planting and maintaining them in order to flourish and produce high yields and removing and replacing trees when diseased or too old to be usefully productive. The human factor is also instrumental in the destruction of orchards, both in the physical act of destruction and in the identification of orchards as no longer being useful or necessary features of a particular area.

Nine chapters take us through the results of the multifarious investigations undertaken by the project. They explore the history, surveying, and mapping of orchards in the eastern counties, the demise of the once-ubiquitous farmhouse orchard, changing methods of farming and patterns of land ownership and use, and the development of the nursery trade. Orchards as features of designed landscapes are considered, from country house estates to those planted in the grounds of institutions such as those of hospitals and colleges. The development of fruit-related industries such as canning, jam, and cider production is discussed as are the cultural and commercial factors that influenced the pre- and post-industrial centuries.

The commercial orchard, such an important feature of the region, was in its infancy prior to the ‘orchard century’, c.1850–1960, the subject of chapter 3, in which we journey through the heyday and subsequent decline and fall of the orchard industry. There was significant growth in the period up to the First World War and, in the interwar years, expansion of the commercial orchard was bolstered by large-scale industrialization and urban development, the products being more easily transported thanks to improved rail and road communications. It is shown that expansion continued after the end of the Second World War, peaking in the 1950s and ’60s, and outlines the reasons for the loss of vast numbers of commercial orchards over the course of the past half century, in some measure due to EEC membership and the rise of foreign imports but also to changes in shopping habits and food consumption and the demise of many small farms. The range of varieties being grown today nationwide is minimal compared to the range of known native varieties, many of which are now known by name only.

The penultimate chapter makes a strong case made for the importance and significance of orchards as landscape features, areas of fruit production, wildlife and wildflower habitats, and as public amenities. If orchards are a part of our heritage to be valued and to form part of future landscapes, how should this be brought about? Although historically part of the landscape they are not in themselves timeless and, going forward, should contribute productively to future landscapes in terms of biodiversity of ecology and habitat, edible produce, and uplifting places of peace and beauty. ‘Biodiversity’ and ‘rewilding’ are hot topics today but how appropriate are they when applied to orchards, given their ‘semi-natural’ character and the level of human input?

The book features a good number of maps, plans, photographs and other illustrations: could more have been included? But this is only a minor niggle. It must have been a Herculean task to select from the vast amount of data generated by the project and even more so to assign material to the various chapters. There is so much information here for local and landscape historians, social and economic historians, horticulturists, ecologists and anyone with any degree of interest in orchards. The curious can plunder the bibliography in search of further reading, for whether read straight through from start to finish or dipped into to peruse selected chapters, this book is a wellspring of information to bolster the current resurgence of interest in orchards and fruit varieties. It sets the bar dauntingly high for future regional orchard studies.