In the past and especially before the Industrial Revolution, people lived closer to the earth and to a large extent, looked after themselves as much as they could. Ordinary people living in the countryside were of necessity, what we now call 'foragers'. Foraging has had a raised profile in recent times, building on the earlier work of people like Richard Mabey with his 'Food for Free' book first published in 1972. Nowadays up-market chefs use foragers to supply them with a whole range of wild leaves and berries for their restaurants. Celebrity foragers have Instagram accounts and have appeared on recent mainstream TV programs as diverse as 'Countryfile' and ‘Extraordinary Escapes with Sandi Toksvig'. As well as providing unusual cocktail ingredients and tasty additions to salads, plants are being re-discovered for other uses - such as nettles for fibre, and elderberry juice for its anti-viral properties.
Many of the plants we found when surveying the Orchard site, could have been used by the people living there in the past, and in a variety of ways. ALL the plants mentioned below and highlighted in bold, are ones we found growing there in 2021.
Firstly, for food and drink.
'Dandelion and Burdock' can be made into a non-alcoholic drink, and this 'botanical brew' is still commercially available and on sale in our local Co-Op. The common Elder tree provides flowers and berries to make both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Either a light elderflower cordial or white wine made in the spring, or a strong-tasting elderberry syrup or red wine made in the autumn, all very different drinks which can be made from this same tree. In the spring there is a covering of Ground Ivy in the Orchard. Before hops replaced it, the leaves were used as a bittering agent for making ale, hence it was a very important plant. It also helped to clear the drink and improve its keeping qualities. Again, the leaves can also be made into a non-alcoholic herbal tea, once considered a good tonic and stomach settler. [Warning, Ground Ivy is a small plant with purple flowers, not to be confused with Ivy itself which can also straggle across the ground]. Mugwort has bitter leaves, also used in the past to flavour beer or dried to make a tea.
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| Dandelion and Burdock |
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| Nettles |
Young Stinging Nettles and Hawthorn leaves can both be eaten in the spring, the first cooked and the second raw, once known to country children as 'bread and cheese'. Several other plants are edible and could supplement a meagre diet for a poor agricultural labourer and his family.
Many 'wild vegetables' are ready in early spring well before most garden vegetables are ready for harvest. These were considered to cleanse the blood after winter, as well as provide a meal. For example, young Cleavers is edible, as is the garlicky Hedge Mustard, as well as tender Chickweed which can be lightly fried in butter. In addition to these useful leaves, Mabey lists many others which are edible, and includes recipes for most. For example, Cow Parsley, Dandelion, Dock, White Deadnettle and White Mustard, all of which should be eaten young. Even the Hogweed produces fleshy young shoots which can be cooked like asparagus.
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| Cleavers |
There would be a variety of berries and nuts in the local area in late summer/autumn, all available to gather for free. For example, blackberries from Bramble for eating raw, making jams and jellies, or stewing with apples and perhaps a few elderberries too. We have planted Hazel in the new Orchard hedge, this tree certainly grows close by and no doubt nuts were harvested and stored for eating, they will easily keep till Christmas if you get to them before the squirrels. In the far-off days before farming, it is thought that hazelnuts were a very important foodstuff for our hunter-gatherer ancestors.
Secondly for medicinal use.
Before the advent of the NHS in 1948, doctors were expensive and by no means accessible to ordinary folk. We do know of a few men who practised medicine in the area in the 1700s and 1800s, such as one who grew his medicinal herbs in Crowell Wood and another described as a 'herb doctor of Chinnor'. But it is likely that the Orchard families would have had to use their own knowledge of folk medicine to treat their ailments and accidents. Perhaps they knew about Herb Robert, a small geranium with pink flowers which was used in folk medicine as an eyewash and gargle. According to the Woodland Trust it was also used as an antiseptic, to treat nosebleeds and stomach upsets and as an insect repellent. Other modern sources now credit it with a myriad of uses from helping stress and anxiety to relieving pain and boosting both kidney health and overall immunity - you can even buy a ready-made tincture online.
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| Herb Robert |
Rose hips from the Dog Rose will make a health-giving syrup for children, full of Vitamin C, and this became very important during WW2 when the supply of imported citrus fruit was blocked. In 1941, Oxfordshire WI members collected enough hips from the wild to make over 200 lbs of jam. No doubt that such syrups and jams were made in local homes long before this. In Chinnor itself during the War, each WI member committed to collecting 3 lbs of Dandelion roots, to be sent away and made into a diuretic when imported medicines were not available.
Most people will know that Dock leaves when crushed and applied to the skin, can help to calm the pain from a stinging nettle. This belief is mentioned as far back as the Anglo-Saxon chronicles and in Chaucer, but current thinking is that it only has a placebo effect based on a centuries-old 'folk memory'. Scientists haven't yet been able to find any active chemical in Dock to explain the effect. Or perhaps the juice evaporating from the skin provides a slight cooling effect to give relief, and Dock was chosen as it usually grows close to Nettle so would be available to apply very quickly.
Herb Bennet was grown as a pot herb in the 1500s and used in soups and stews. But it was also believed to ward off evil spirits and protect against 'venomous beasts' such as rabid dogs and poisonous snakes. The roots were also used to protect clothing and other textiles from the dreaded clothes moth. Its name comes from the Latin for 'Blessed Herb' but it has now fallen out of favour, as so far, its uses are not supported by science. Ploughman's Spikenard once had a good reputation as a curative plant especially for wounds and bruises. Fleas do not like the smell and the leaves could be burnt as an effective insecticide. It has an aromatic root and 'cinnamon root' was another of its common names. Hedge Woundwort speaks for itself; beloved of the bumble bees in the Orchard, it has been found to have mildly antiseptic properties and was in use as far back as the 16th century.
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| Herb Bennet |
Travellers' Joy (or Old Man's Beard) is poisonous raw, but when safely prepared by heating or drying it has many medicinal uses including pain relief. It is made into a rub for arthritis and rheumatism. It is also one of the five plants used in 'Bach Rescue Remedy' on sale today in Boots and Sainsburys. Spindle too is poisonous, but in the 17th century, baked and powdered fruits were used as a natural insecticide and sprinkled on the hair to kill head lice or nits. A writer living in Buckinghamshire in the early part of the last century, described spindle fruit being used as a purgative in rural districts. Also, a decoction with vinegar was being used as a lotion for mange in horses and cattle.
Thirdly there is a whole range of other uses to which plants have been put by man apart from eating, drinking and as cures for illnesses.
For example, the roots of Green Alkanet once provided a red dye used in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and wine-making industries. Cleavers has a lace-making connection, as well as being used by dairy maids as a strainer for milk. Whether our lace-makers in the Orchard stuck the green seed balls onto pins to make the heads larger, all the better to hold the growing lace whilst they made it, we shall probably never know, but this really is a recorded use of the plant. Cleavers was also dried and used to stuff mattresses, and to make a red dye.
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| Green Alkanet |
Perhaps the most surprising fact is that herbalists used the twisting shape of the White Bryony stems as their shop sign, so that even those who couldn't read could recognise the shop. Moreover, its roots were sold as amulets and love charms, and for protection from the devil. Another name for this plant is the English Mandrake, it grows all over our site. A poisonous plant (if you were to eat it), the Lords and Ladies, was once commercially important and sold as 'Portland sago'. It was prepared from the roots and used as a starch for stiffening clothes such as the Elizabethan collars well-known from Royal portraits of the Tudors. Actually when roasted and properly prepared, the root was also used to make a drink before the days of tea and coffee, and as a substitute for arrowroot, but I wouldn't advise trying that. If you have the urge, then Dandelion root can safely be dried and roasted for grinding to prepare a coffee substitute much like its cousin Chicory (of Camp coffee fame, so far not found growing in the Orchard, but there is plenty elsewhere in Chinnor). Further back in the days when 'making fire' without matches was a necessary thing, one of the most prized sources of tinder was the 'clock' of the Dandelion.
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| Lords and Ladies |
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| White Bryony |
It is probable that the Orchard dwellers used suitable plants to supplement the diet of the domestic animals they kept. For example, Chickweed for the hens and Hogweed for the family pig. Another name for Cleavers is Goosegrass, and it would be fed to geese and ducks, or sought out by them as they roamed the back garden. I believe that even the children would have known the names of wild flowers in those days, as I first learnt the names of Dandelion, Shepherd's purse, and Hogweed as a result of collecting food for our pet rabbits; this of course required accurate identification so as not to pick anything harmful. Eighty years ago, the Childrens' classes at the Chinnor Flower Show comprised only four categories and three involved picking wild flowers! One class was for a bunch containing the greatest number of varieties, so the child had to be able to recognise different species. Pressed wild flowers continued as a class right into the 1960s.
The more you look, the more it seems that man once had a use for the majority of wild plants. In fact, it is hard to find any that cannot be utilised in some way, and I have not even covered all of the Orchard plants in this article. Moreover, several plants have more than one attribute which has been helpful in the past. A good example is the Greater Plantain which thrives in the Orchard on the tracks where nettles have been cleared, it seems to love being trampled. One of its other names is 'Waybread', long known to travellers as they moved along the old tracks and made a meal around the campfire overnight. It is apparently rich in beta-carotene and calcium. As well as being eaten (raw leaves when young, boiled when older), its plentiful seeds can be used as a flour substitute or to make the real thing go further, as they are rich in carbohydrates. The older plants develop tough fibres which can be used for cord and braids. @foragedfibres is a weaver from Cumbria who has posted a short video showing how to make Plantain string. (She also collects fibres from Willow herb, Burdock and Bramble for her basketry, and weaves using the long dried flower stems of the other plantain we have in the Orchard, the Ribwort Plantain). While on the subject of fibres, the stems of Travellers' Joy were also used to make rope and baskets in the past. In folk medicine a poultice of Plantain has been widely used for healing wounds, all over the world and probably since the time of the first farmers when they started getting cuts from their sharp tools. Noted for its medical properties by the ancient Greeks and also used by the Vikings, it even gets a mention in 'Romeo and Juliet' and elsewhere in Shakespeare's works. In addition it can treat sores, insect and nettle stings (perhaps better than Dock), and was used for the rather more serious illnesses of fever and chest infections such as bronchitis. Recent research has found anti-bacterial and anti-fungal compounds in extracts of Plantain. Not for nothing was 'Waybroed' one of the Anglo-Saxons' nine sacred herbs!
The more you look, the more it seems that man once had a use for the majority of wild plants. In fact, it is hard to find any that cannot be utilised in some way, and I have not even covered all of the Orchard plants in this article. Moreover, several plants have more than one attribute which has been helpful in the past. A good example is the Greater Plantain which thrives in the Orchard on the tracks where nettles have been cleared, it seems to love being trampled. One of its other names is 'Waybread', long known to travellers as they moved along the old tracks and made a meal around the campfire overnight. It is apparently rich in beta-carotene and calcium. As well as being eaten (raw leaves when young, boiled when older), its plentiful seeds can be used as a flour substitute or to make the real thing go further, as they are rich in carbohydrates. The older plants develop tough fibres which can be used for cord and braids. @foragedfibres is a weaver from Cumbria who has posted a short video showing how to make Plantain string. (She also collects fibres from Willow herb, Burdock and Bramble for her basketry, and weaves using the long dried flower stems of the other plantain we have in the Orchard, the Ribwort Plantain). While on the subject of fibres, the stems of Travellers' Joy were also used to make rope and baskets in the past. In folk medicine a poultice of Plantain has been widely used for healing wounds, all over the world and probably since the time of the first farmers when they started getting cuts from their sharp tools. Noted for its medical properties by the ancient Greeks and also used by the Vikings, it even gets a mention in 'Romeo and Juliet' and elsewhere in Shakespeare's works. In addition it can treat sores, insect and nettle stings (perhaps better than Dock), and was used for the rather more serious illnesses of fever and chest infections such as bronchitis. Recent research has found anti-bacterial and anti-fungal compounds in extracts of Plantain. Not for nothing was 'Waybroed' one of the Anglo-Saxons' nine sacred herbs!
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| Ribwort Plantain |
I hope this article will make you take a second look at the plants growing up Donkey Lane. There is so much to write about Nettles, Hawthorn/May and the Elder tree that they will be covered separately in future articles. The way that different timbers from the various trees were used for different purposes, will also have to wait its turn. Along with 'apple lore', the many uses of apples (and plums) will also appear in a separate article.
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| Elderflower |
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| Dog Rose |
Christine Davis April 2023
A Modern Herbal by Mary Grieve, published 1931, revised 1973. Available online for free at Botanical.com
The Englishman's Flora by Geoffrey Grigson, published 1958
Food for Free by Richard Mabey, published 1972, new edition 2007
National Trust Herbal by Reginald Peplow, published 1987
The traditional uses, chemical constituents and biological activities of Plantago major L. By Anne Berit Samuelsen July 2000 Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 77 (1–2): 1–21. Available free via the National Library of Medicine online
Fiona Mantle's thesis 'The Social History of Medical Self-Help in 20th -Century England' 2019. Available online for free
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org
And of course, Mr Berners-Lee's 1990 gift of the World Wide Web
Sources
A Modern Herbal by Mary Grieve, published 1931, revised 1973. Available online for free at Botanical.com
The Englishman's Flora by Geoffrey Grigson, published 1958
Food for Free by Richard Mabey, published 1972, new edition 2007
National Trust Herbal by Reginald Peplow, published 1987
The traditional uses, chemical constituents and biological activities of Plantago major L. By Anne Berit Samuelsen July 2000 Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 77 (1–2): 1–21. Available free via the National Library of Medicine online
Fiona Mantle's thesis 'The Social History of Medical Self-Help in 20th -Century England' 2019. Available online for free
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org
And of course, Mr Berners-Lee's 1990 gift of the World Wide Web
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