Christmas Thoughts at Donkey Lane Community Orchard

 It’s late October and I’m bent over, kneeling on my green gardening pad to try and take the pressure off my knees. Bending is a problem because I’m all wrapped up with several thick layers, including my wax jacket and the waterproof trousers I used to wear for biking in wet weather. I’m here to help dig a test pit in the Orchard, after all those Sunday afternoons watching ‘Time Team’ in the 1990s, I am finally doing it myself. It’s hard work, this wet clay is really heavy. But it is rather addictive, as you move down carefully taking off the earth inch by inch and thinking that the next layer might be the one where you find something really exciting. We’ve already got a large spoil heap and on top perches the little robin who has adopted our pit. He came to see us both days and sang for his supper, thanking us for all the worms.

Robins seem to have a special affinity with man, is that why they have become associated with our biggest annual celebration? They began appearing on Christmas cards when these first became popular in Victorian times, and are still there today. The early postmen wore bright red jackets and were known as ‘robins’ or ‘redbreasts’. Early cards showed the bright red post-boxes along with a robin holding a card in its beak. Nowadays robins can be seen on all the supermarket shelves on packaging for a whole range of items, as well as on Christmas tree decorations. Even if the practice of sending cards continues to dwindle, there will always be the robin worn on a Christmas jumper or decorating the wrapping paper used for Christmas presents.

The robin is also found in earlier folk tales associated with Christianity and the birth of Jesus. There was said to be a robin in the manger who flapped his wings to fan the fire which was in danger of going out. The flame revived, mother and baby were kept warm, but the little brown bird scorched his breast. There is a different version which takes place later, when Jesus was on the cross. A robin pulled out a thorn from his crown and sang to him to try and ease his suffering. In this version a drop of blood fell onto the robin’s breast and coloured it.

We seem to have at least two resident robins in the Orchard which is surprising as they are usually very territorial birds. It is interesting that they are always referred to as the ‘red robin’ because when you really look, their breast is orange. This tells us that the bird was named before the English language had a word for orange – rather like the ‘scarlet pimpernel’ flower which looks perfectly orange to my eyes. The robin has been our national bird since 1960, and is a favourite of the public, especially gardeners and those who like to feed their wild visitors.





I straighten up to stretch my back, I can see the holly tree already decorated with many scarlet berries shining through the drizzle. Perhaps they foretell a hard winter to come? Read more...

Newcomers to the Orchard 2023

The soil in the Orchard is a natural seed bank and it turns out that many different wildflower seeds are being stored there. As we have been doing clearing work, and disturbing the soil to dig out nettles or plant new hedging, dormant seeds have been given a chance to grow up into the light. Some of the plants are new to us. Compared to what we first recorded in 2021, last year we counted six ‘new’ species and again this year we found a similar number.

 
Here are a couple of plants that we noticed for the first time this year. They are both members of the Daisy family and they both arrived on our shores in the 1700s. However the way that they came here was very different, the first arrived accidentally but the second was brought here on purpose.

 

Conyza canadensis - Canadian fleabane

Two specimens turned up growing close up by what we call the Queen apple tree. This fleabane is a plant originally native to North and Central America, where it has become a problem weed in soya bean fields and it is known there as Horseweed. Here with us it has a rather unassuming look, a tallish weedy annual growing in arable land and having very small colourless flowers and fluffy seed heads. It isn’t a problem in the UK. It also thrives in man-made environments such as the pavements in city streets. It can now be found from Cornwall right up to Scotland, and it seems to have spread rapidly north in recent years perhaps as a result of the warming climate.  Read more...

Donkey Lane Community Orchard - The Guntrips

Sarah Gomme and John Guntrip married in St Andrews Church in Chinnor on 7th of December 1818. They were both in later life for a first marriage by the trends of the time. According to records, John was about 40 and Sarah 36. Sarah’s maiden name was spelled in several ways in the numerous records that we have found. It can be Gumm, Gomme, Gomm or Gom. To save confusion we will use Gomme in this piece. Guntrip also has alternative spelling with a double ‘p’ at the end and on Sarah’s death recording she is listed as ‘Lantrip’. The marriage was witnessed by Lucy Gomme and William Neal who were both able to sign their names. John and Sarah only “made their mark” which was not unusual for the time and seems the case for many marriage records. We have not yet found any children from this marriage.

Sarah was the daughter of Thomas Gomme and Mary Eustace, both of Chinnor. Their marriage was recorded in the Chinnor church records in 1773. The Gomme’s had many children, several of whom had died in infancy.

There were as many as 15 recorded births although at least two died in infancy and it seems from the parish records that they used the name again for the next child, which seemed quite common at the time. The two examples of this were Lucy born 1798 and died 1799, followed by another Lucy born in 1800. There was also a James born in 1791 and died in 1792 followed by another James born in 1793 who made it into adulthood as he was still present on the later census returns.

For example, the first Lucy’s birth 24th January 1788, death, June 15th, 1789, making her 17 months old.

This is the second Lucy’s birth record for 11th March 1800. This Lucy, who was a witness at Sarah and John’s wedding in 1818, went on to have a longish life marrying James Biggs 4 years later in 1822. They had 3 surviving daughters and a son. Read more...

Donkey Lane Community Orchard - Heritage Fruit Tree Nursery

Renovation and restoration of the Orchard means we need to ensure the heritage fruit trees are not lost to posterity and in February 2023, a new Orchard nursery was established to safeguard the genetic lines of the apple trees.

Most of the fruit trees are well in excess of 100 years old and as such are starting to come to the end of their natural life. With the need to preserve such varieties as “Lane’s Prince Albert”, the decision was made to graft* some of the ‘more vulnerable’ apple trees. Grafting essentially clones the tree. It enables the forming of a new tree with the same genetic makeup as the original tree. This way we can preserve the variety true to form. At present we do not know the names of all varieties of apples in the Orchard although DNA testing, results which will be available the end of the year, should give that information. We do know however, that two of the apple trees have been lost in the last year due to storms.

In February, members of the group took scion cuttings from five of the apple trees and attended the Mid Shires Orchard Group ‘Scion Swap’ at Buckingham Nurseries. Here they were advised on what root stock would be suitable for the Orchard trees and chose M111, a vigorous and disease resistant rootstock which should produce heavy crops in 3 to 4 years. Read more...

Chalk, Chalk, Chalk and more Chalk - The geology of the area around the orchard

Setting the scene

There are photographs of the cottages in Donkey Lane from the pre and post WW1 period showing that this was and still is an idyllic setting. It sits at the base of the chalky Chiltern Hills on one of the historic routes in and out of Chinnor. 

Photographic evidence shows that the middle cottage was the only one remaining around 1920 although the top one which was parallel to the lane was still present on a postcard picture, dated, according to the postmark around 1902. The third pair of cottages which were mentioned in the census and depicted on maps disappeared soon after the coming of the railway. They were last mentioned as inhabited on the 1881 census. They are still depicted on the 1880’s map now showing the railway. There is no sign of them on the turn of the century photographs. 

The families posing in the above photograph from about the turn of 20th century are wearing their Sunday best and standing close to the railway fence. By this time the bottom pair of cottages had gone, the ladies with the baby would have been standing roughly where they had originally been situated. Today that is near where the new gate into the orchard is situated.

Since the cottages became uninhabited the plot has had several uses. The fruit continued to grow and was harvested every year in the autumn by the locals until present day. It was recollected by some locals that there were berries as well as plums and apples. There are currently plenty of wild blackberry bushes growing but it was mentioned anecdotally that there were still blackcurrants, gooseberries and raspberries still there in the 50’s. These were possibly left over from the kitchen gardens of the cottages or even dumped afterwards by locals as garden waste and rooted.

In the 40’s and 50’s the area was used by the farm workers in the cottages on the village side of the railway to keep their chickens. It has however, largely remained uninhabited and undeveloped now for about a hundred years. It is thought that the last cottage was demolished in the 1920’s. Many people who have recollected about this area describe walking past the orchard up the lane to the hills as a family, often on a Sunday afternoon. Sometimes to the pub on the top of the hill or along to the pubs on the Ridgeway. They all remembered picking fruit on the way back.

Since the 1960s the plot has mostly been used as an informal adventure playground and sadly a place where some locals dumped garden rubbish and building materials. The well was made safe in the 60’s to prevent anyone falling in but it was still obviously a well in the 1980’s but underwent a number of changes in the ensuing years. The youngsters of the area have used the orchard as a place to have adventures since the demolition of the houses and possibly before! When the clearing began in 2019 the well was found to be caving in from ‘den works’ a huge chalk cavern had been carved out, by this time it was unclear where the actual well shaft was so it needed to be temporarily filled in until it can be made safe. This was done during some of the earlier working parties. This photograph taken in 2019 of the excavations shows the extent of the chalk below the ground in the area. The den in the photograph was cut into the chalk which must have been quite hard work.  Read more...

Donkey Lane Community Orchard - INHABITANTS CENSUS 1861 – read all about it!!!

In 1861 it appears that only 4 of the Cottages in the Donkey Lane “Orchard” were occupied and the name of the Lane, in the Census, had reverted from “Guntrip Lane” back to “Hollans Lane”. One of the families missing was the Guntrips themselves which may be the reason why the lane changed its name back to “Hollans or Hollands”. John Guntrip had died in 1854 leaving wife Elizabeth. She was residing there in 1859 Tithe Amendment records but died that year and was buried on the 22nd February 1859. The Stratford family had vacated and also the Wades but the Howlett family had returned to the Lane.

The Howletts had rejoined the families who were there a decade earlier: the Marriotts, the Bishops and the Folleys.

In 1859 a Lucy Biggs had been residing but she had moved out before 1861 and had moved to live with a Jonah Britnell as a housekeeper in his house at Crowell Hill.

The returning Howletts were now represented by Maria Howlett, 3 children and a lodger Ann Styles. Two decades earlier she had lived in the Lane with her husband Edward, moving thence to a lower part of Chinnor and then to Wainhill. Edward died in 1858 and the widowed Maria moved back into Hollands Lane with her two daughters, Maria junior and Ruth along with grandchild Jane Maria. The girls are recorded as lacemakers but Maria, without a husband’s income, is designated a pauper claiming on the parish for support. A small amount of income would have been received as rental from lodger Ann Styles, also a lacemaker. The household was reduced in 1861 when daughter Ruth moved out upon marriage to James Smith a labourer from Longwick. Three years later they had a baby who they named Maria. The household was further reduced, in the same year, when granddaughter Jane Maria married James Munday. Some mystery surrounds who was Jane Maria’s mother. Born in 1842 she was not baptised until 1855 by her grandparents, Edward and Maria. Interestingly when Jane Maria married the Church Register revealed that her father was stated to be a Richard Jones, labourer.

Tragedy struck a year later in 1862 when Maria junior died aged a mere 45 and poor widowed Maria herself passed away in 1865, aged 73, leaving an empty cottage inviting new residents. READ MORE...

Donkey Lane Dwellers - Recollections of Local Residents

According to a history of Chinnor compiled by members of the WI in the late 1940s Keanes (sic) Lane was named after the Keane family who for 300 years occupied Hill Farm beside the lane. There were cottages with mud walls on the lane close to the railway crossing. These were inhabited by men who carted flints, for road making down from the hills using donkeys. The carters' donkeys grazed in the grassy lane and so Keane's Lane became Donkey Lane. They also carried wood for chairmaking. 'Donkey Jimmy' is remembered as the last and proud owner of four donkeys.

Recollections of the late Mabel Howlett

 
“Chinnor has always been my home and I have never wanted to live anywhere else. In 1952 I married my second husband who worked for the Eggleston’s at Hill Farm and we went to live in a cottage in Keens Lane dating back to the 1600s. The cottages were on the left when walking up the lane [before the railway crossing and is now a field]. We always knew Keens Lane as Donkey Lane. There were two cottages, the other was occupied by Syd Heybourne, his wife Doris and daughters Jean and Joan. Syd looked after the pigs and farm gardens and tennis courts.

 
Rent for the cottage was one shilling a week and the rates ninepence [together roughly 10p in today’s money]. There were no drains of any kind, just an earth lavatory at the top of the garden and a tin bath kept hanging on the shed wall and fetched in for bath nights. We washed our dishes and prepared vegetables etc at the kitchen table and drew water from the well in buckets. Someone asked me how many buckets I drew on a wash day (Monday). I wasn't sure so the next week I counted them and it was thirty.

People tried to keep the houses nice on the inside, but decorating a room was a major operation. First, we had to borrow the book of wallpaper patterns from Mr. Johnson’s shop in the High Street (today a private house: ‘Dillamores’), then once the whole family had agreed on a paper, it had to be ordered. By the time it had arrived we had whitewashed the ceiling with chalk and water with a blue bag added to make it white. The painting had been done (usually dark brown) with paint from Mr Arnold. Mabel then goes into great detail about the hanging of the wallpaper with paste made from flour and hot water that needed endless stirring to remove the lumps. Quite an undertaking. (Ed)

One day when I went to draw water from the well, I heard a cat meowing. My neighbour then drew a bucket but she couldn’t hear it. Mr Keen, who was a cowman at the farm, came up the lane so I called him over but he couldn’t hear the cat either. He said he would sit by the well while I drew a bucket. I always gave the handle a pull and then let it go by itself. Everyone heard the cat then. Syd came up from the farm and attached a basket to the rope. He let it down carefully and the kitten clung on to it. The kitten was nearly at the top when it fell off again and landed back in the same crevice. Eventually someone had to make a trip to Potters in Thame to borrow a long rope ladder which they attached to a wooden ladder. Syd then went down and brought the kitten up. Joan, Syd’s daughter put a hot water bottle in her doll’s pram, tucked the kitten up in it and within half an hour it was running around none the worse for its adventures.

Mr Eggleton did all he could to get the cottages modernised but in the end he built two new cottages for us on the opposite side of the lane. Piped water had come to the village so there was a smart bathroom and a copper for boiling water and washing. After we had moved into the new cottages my husband was asked to tie a rope to the chimney of the old cottages and pull them down with the tractor, which he sadly did.” READ MORE...

Donkey Lane Community Orchard - Plants growing in the Orchard

Some five years ago, if you went for a walk up Donkey Lane and crossed the railway line, you would have noticed a wild scrubby patch of land on your right. A quick glance would have shown thick brambles and ivy growing around some struggling trees, and dense undergrowth dominated by nettles. In April there was a scattering of blossom to see, and then in autumn glimpses of apples in the higher branches, revealing that someone once planted apple trees there.

Since Greening Chinnor began to selectively clear the area in 2019, it has been a revelation to see just how many species of plants have sprung up from seeds which have been resting in the dark soil. Seeds can lie dormant for many decades until the ground is disturbed and light is let in. It is very likely that at least some of the plants we find there today, are descendants of plants which were growing there when people lived on the site.

We carried out monthly surveys of the flowering plants between May and September last year, 2021. A flowering plant does not have to be in flower to be counted but it is one which will flower at some time. The following article will give you an idea of the range of plant species that we counted, which added up to 75 in all. In addition, a different survey had been made earlier in March, just looking at the non-flowering plants. This revealed some 34 species, which were mosses, lichens, fungi and one liverwort. So overall the flora found so far comprises more than 100 species, a quite astounding number.

Firstly, the trees and shrubs. Besides some 20 Apples and a Plum, we have ... Read more

Donkey Lane Community Orchard - The Inhabitants of Guntrip's Lane 1851

Drawing courtesy of Bernard Braun 

Donkey Lane Community Orchard – The Inhabitants of Guntrip’s Lane – 1851

1. John & Sarah Guntrip

In 1851 all three cottages in the Donkey Lane “Orchard”, containing the six households, were occupied. The lane, branching off as it does from the present “High Street”, not yet severed off from the village by the railway line, and stretching uphill over the fields to the Upper Icknield Way, had seen a change of name since 1841 when it was enumerated, or certainly the lower part which led from Hill Farm and past the cottages, as Holland Lane. Now in 1851 it is described as “Guntrip’s Lane”. One family living in the lane bears the surname of Guntrip and it would appear that the Lane took its new name from this fact.

Ten years earlier, in 1841, John and Sarah Guntrip, along with Sarah’s widowed mother, Mary Gomme were living there. Mary had passed away in 1842 leaving John and Sarah as the only occupants of the cottage. John Guntrip, of Thame, had married a Sarah Gomm/Gumm on the 7th December 1818 when John would have been about 37 years of age and Sarah about 36 - indicating that they had married quite late in life. No details of any children have been found so perhaps the marriage was childless. We do not know when they moved into the cottage in Holland’s Lane but this cottage formed their matrimonial home during the latter stages of their life together.

John, although now aged 73, had not retired and was still working as a “dealer in wood” who, we assume, would therefore have been purchasing timber from the local woods either by bidding at auction or buying certain areas of trees in the wood, arranging felling and taking the huge tree trunks back to the village. He probably stored the trees in the garden of his cottage or in a yard somewhere in the village and in some cases may have left them several months or years to “season” before being ready for use and sale. He may have cut the trunks down to smaller sizes. The wood and timber would then have been available for sale to local businesses who converted the timber into other smaller, saleable items - the chair maker, the chair turners, if the turners did not have a pitch within the woods themselves, the wheelwright, the cabinet maker, the carpenter and any other artisan who used wood to produce a finished article.

 Read more...

Donkey Lane Community Orchard - The First 3 Months of the Project

 After 18 months of discussions and agreements from the landowner, Mr Nixey, the Parish Council and our funding partner, The Chiltern Conservation Board and with a line-up of very eager volunteers, we were finally ready to embark on the actual ‘hands-on’ restoration of Donkey Lane Community Orchard. 

As the Orchard was hugely overgrown with waist-deep, thick-stemmed brambles, thick ivy overgrowths, general brash and fallen tree trunks, the number of volunteers at the first few working parties had to be restricted. After a health & safety chat and distribution of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), each person was given some tools and a place at the centre of the small cleared area to start clearing; radiating outwards. The plan – to find the known 20 old apple trees and the Chinnor Plum and with a great sense of purpose and adventure, the work began! 

As well as the trees, and at least 30 years of accumulated rubbish, we knew there was an underground den and treehouse. When the ‘den’ area was cleared and inspected, it was found that some of the supporting timbers had been removed and the roof had collapsed. This would be something we would have to deal with and make safe. A structural survey was carried out on the treehouse and it was found that the floor was rotten and unsafe. Another potential hazard to sort out!

Whilst clearing brambles and ivy from the ground several things, apart from the trees, emerged; glass, this had to be and still is, the biggest find, from old windows, car windscreens, broken beer bottles to some very thick pieces of opaque glass – perhaps from old milk bottles. 

 

There were some ceramic finds of small broken pieces of green, blue and white pottery and two treasures; a 1950s bee ornament and a small metal cast replica of Concord. Could any of this give an indication to the lives of the early inhabitants of the orchard? Maybe; we’re still waiting to find treasure!  

 

 

 

The work in the Orchard in the first three months was phenomenal. We found the 21 fruit trees and more! Some of the trees were totally hidden under a heavy ‘blanket’ of ivy and some of the taller trees had so much ivy on the canopy, they were in danger of toppling over in high winds. Some of the trees had already fallen over and looked dead.

We had to take down the treehouse and infill the ‘den’ and in time, will make use of the wood and other materials to make wildlife habitats throughout the Orchard.

Those first few months were pivotal and the sense of achievement and pride by all was truly felt. The Orchard had gone from being extremely overgrown and almost impossible to get into with the fruit trees hidden and virtually no view of the surrounding area, to most of the fruit trees cleared of ivy and brambles as far up as possible. With the discovery of the fruit trees and, referring back to the 1877 map, it is possible that these could be the trees in the original photographs standing in the garden of the cottages over 150 years ago. Read more ...

Donkey Lane Community Orchard - Wassail

If you happened to walk up Donkey Lane on a very cold Saturday afternoon in January 2020, you might have heard a group of people singing and 'making merry' in the Orchard. What was that all about? Well, Greening Chinnor were holding their first Wassail just before Covid and lockdown struck. We couldn't hold one this year, but on Saturday January 29th 2022, we will once again be Wassailing the apple trees.

Advertising for the event described it as "a very old tradition practiced in the apple orchards of southern England during the winter to bless the fruit trees to encourage them to produce a good harvest for the year. The tradition is to make a lot of noise to ward off bad luck and mischievous spirits, so they stay away and don't steal the fruit!"

The word Wassail comes from the Old English 'Waes Hael' meaning Be Healthy or Be Whole; and it is a toast of 'Good health' for both the people, their crops and their animals. Because once upon a time it wasn't just apple trees that were Wassailed, other fruit trees, cows and even bees all had their own Wassailing. The ceremony involving cider apple trees seems to have survived longest, so it is counties such as Somerset, Devon and Herefordshire which were most closely associated with Wassailing in the last century and into living memory.

Dating back at least to the Middle Ages, Wassailing is a custom which almost died out but has lately been revived and re-imagined for the 21st century. For example the National Trust has held public events at several of its properties in recent years, and locally the Mid Shires Orchard Group has been holding Wassails in orchards in Buckinghamshire since about 2008. It is now often celebrated in a more family-friendly way during daylight hours. In the Cotswolds the Morris Men take part in dancing round the trees, and here in Chinnor we were lucky enough to have the Village Voices community choir come to sing us Wassail songs as well as the Vicar who blessed the Orchard.

Other aspects of the traditional ceremony included drinking from a communal Wassail bowl, with a sort of punch which could be cider or beer-based, usually warm and spiced and sometimes with added eggs and cream. These Wassails were held at night, with bonfires being lit in the orchards and people carrying flaming torches. Such old customs could vary between different villages, even between different farms, but they all encompassed singing, drinking and praising the trees with encouragement to do even better next year. Each place had its own song too, a form of folk song or carol, and luckily many of them were collected and written down before they were forgotten. The closest to us that I can find is the Adderbury (Oxon) Wassail, collected in 1917. Read more...

Donkey Lane Community Orchard - The effect of WW1 on the families born in the Orchard Part 2 The Sad Part!

Anyone reading this will know that this is not a story with a happy ending. The three young men in question are featured on the Chinnor War Memorial and were all closely connected with what is now, The Donkey Lane Community Orchard.

 

Major Frank Eggleton, Royal Field Artillery

His battery took part in the 3rd Battle of Ypres better known as Passchendaele. The Battle lasted from July 1917 until November, but the main offensive began on the 12th October to gain the high ground. The weather was very wet indeed and the whole offensive movements were impeded by deep mud, allied troops were mown down by German machine guns because they were unable to advance. This battle was described as a wasteful disaster.

During this time Frank had gone forward to the guns to attend to an officer who had been wounded. On the way back, he stepped aside to let the stretcher pass him and while he was waiting, he was hit by a large piece of exploding shell in his back which entered his spine. A fellow officer with him reported that “he immediately became unconscious and died a few minutes later”. He died on 21st of October 1917 aged just 31. It was reported in the John Hampden Grammar School, High Wycombe obituary that a 2nd Lieutenant in his battalion wrote that he was ‘so loved and respected by all’. He was buried in Canada Farm Cemetery.

Frank is remembered on the High Wycombe Hospital memorial as well as on the Chinnor Memorial. He was reported to be very popular for his kind acts. He had requested that better socks for his men should be found and contacted friends in High Wycombe by letter to arrange for them to be knitted and sent out to the battlefield. We have not yet discovered whether the socks actually arrived there to be used. Read more... 

The Effect of WW1 on the families who lived at the orchard

Anyone who has attended the Chinnor Remembrance Day ceremony will be familiar with the Roll of Honour. The horrific thought of the repeated surnames that are called is disturbing, as is the massive loss of young men especially those from the same family. If like me you can almost recite the WW1 Roll of Honour, you will be aware that there were 4 young men from the Marriott family, 4 from the Witney family but the ones that stood out from the Orchard Cottages Census were 2 of the 4 young men called Howlett, Alfred and Aubrey. In addition, Frank Eggleton, the son of the owner of the land on which the cottages stood. 

The effect of the first world war was felt strongly amongst those who had lived in the immediate area. The Howlett family, Alfred and Mary, lost both of their sons, Alfred and Aubrey. In addition, Frank, the younger son of Henry and Annie Eggleton the landowners at Hill Farm also died. 3 young men from this very small area of Chinnor.

We will begin with Frank Eggleton as he is the eldest of the three and the first one to volunteer. At the time of the 1911 census the orchard land was part of Hill Farm which at that time was owned by Henry Eggleton and his wife Annie (nee Keene) and their two sons William and Frank. William, the elder son was involved in the family business of farming, but the younger son Frank was described as a Mercantile Clerk for Wheeler’s Brewery in High Wycombe. 

Frank was born 5th January 1886 and at 28 years old in 1914 was already quite mature with an already established a career in the brewing trade. He gained further qualifications from evening classes at The John Hampden Grammar School achieving the membership of ‘The Chartered Institute of Secretaries’ and became Company Secretary for Wheelers Brewery in High Wycombe in 1914. The company reported after his death that he had the potential for a very successful career in the company. They had lost quite a few of their key employees as a result of the war.  Read more ...

Donkey Lane Community Orchard - The Apples

 As stated in the previous article on the Chinnor Plum, we knew there were at least 20 apple trees in the orchard, according to the 2013 on-site survey by Derek Tolman of Bernwode Fruit Trees. However, there was no ‘actual’ identification of the varieties of apples on the sketch map but it did tell us some identifying features of the trees such as, double based, single late season, flat - small trunk, split and engulfed!

As clearing of the area began, we were delighted to start finding the fruit trees and by using Derek’s map and numbering system were able to identify them. Not only did we find all 20 trees, we found one more!

After carefully clearing the area around the fruit trees and trying to divest them of the enormous amount of thick growth of ivy, they were numbered and labelled in accordance with the map for consistency.

Any subsequent new fruit trees not identified on the map but in close proximity to an identified tree were given a suffix to identify it; for example by tree number 8 there was a small apple tree sapling which was numbered 8b.

At this stage, although identifying the location of the trees, we had no idea what varieties of apples were in the Orchard. The next question was ‘how were we going to identify them?’

What we knew – the area was thought to be occupied by cottages from c1700 with the last one demolished c1920; the cottagers most likely planted the fruit trees and no apple trees had been planted in the Orchard since it had been abandoned. We were hopeful that some of the apples would be a rarity.

How did we find help to identify them? In September 2019, members of the team, with an assortment of Orchard apples and leaves, visited an apple identification day run by Mid-Shires Orchard Group who had the Chair of the Fruit Section of the RHS attending. Some of the fruit taken had been picked too early so was difficult to identify. This is what we found out. Read more...

Donkey Lane Community Orchard - The Chinnor Plum

 Have you heard of the mythical Chinnor plum? Does it really exist? Read on to find out.

2013 Sketch Map of the fruit trees at orchard

In 2013 a formal survey of Donkey Lane Community Orchard by Derek Tolman of Bernwode Fruit Trees, identified 20 apple trees and a single plum tree. These were marked on a sketch map of the site and scion wood was collected to propagate new trees. This was done in an attempt to protect the genetic lineage of the traditional varieties growing on site. 

Experts later confirmed that the plum was unique and named it the Chinnor plum. 

Move on to early 2019 when we started work clearing the orchard. It was apparent that the overall site was much more overgrown than it was in 2013 and it was difficult to confirm whether all of the trees on the sketch map still existed.

As our clearing of the decades of rubbish, brambles and ivy progressed we discovered not one but two plum trees. They were in a pretty sorry state and the trunks needed support. Once the trees were exposed to the light, we were delighted to see extensive white blossom and much to our surprise similar blossom on a tree a short distance away. Following the line of the trees already found and knowing that plums tend to spread by sending out suckers we were able to find another two juvenile examples. So, in one season our stock of the Chinnor plum had multiplied from one to five. Read more...

Donkey Lane Community Orchard - Who lived there 180 years ago?

The first full population census, taken in 1841, tells us who lived in the three cottages on the land now known as Donkey Lane Community Orchard. It shows us 31 names from the six families living there, which is hard to imagine when you look at the site now. All six were renting from the owner, Joseph Allnut.

The census taker worked from the High Street towards Chinnor Hill and our knowledge of who lived in which cottage is based on a presumption that he continued uphill to follow the dwellings in order. The lane was then called Holland Lane. (Donkey Lane is a later and never an official name.)

In the top cottage, nearest Chinnor Hill, lived the Bishops and the Ways. The Bishop family were Jacob (45) and his wife Ann with daughters Sushannah/Susan (19) and Martha (16). Jacob was an agricultural labourer, probably on one of the local farms. He was born in Oakley in 1796: Oakley then was a separate settlement from Chinnor, connected by a road between heath and fields. He married Ann Keen from Bledlow when he was 25.  Read more... 

Donkey Lane Community Orchard - Setting the Scene

 

Donkey Lane Community Orchard - How it began

Those of you in the village who walk up Keens Lane and into Donkey Lane towards the Ridgeway pass the Donkey Lane Community Orchard on the right just past the railway crossing.

Historically this was not an orchard. On the site there were six families living in three cottages built probably during the late 18th century and finally pulled down about 100 years ago. All of the heritage fruit trees found within the orchard were most likely planted by the cottagers.

About 25 years ago, efforts were made by the Chinnor Countryside group to clear the site but since then it had become completely overgrown and a focus for antisocial behaviour.

Greening Chinnor were approached by the Chiltern Conservation Board back in November 2017 to discuss involvement in ‘Rough around the Edges’; one of the interweaving projects part of the ‘Chalk, Cherries & Chairs’ Lottery-funded project. In discussion, the ‘orchard site’ came up which, at that time, was an impenetrable mess.

After much thinking, surveying and writing, rewriting and even more rewriting of proposals and costings, we were ready to reach out to the community at the end of 2018 and publish the ‘Five-Year Orchard Plan’. Local organisations could not have been more supportive: Chinnor Parish Council, Mid Shires Orchard Group (MSOG), Wild Oxfordshire, BBOWT, Chiltern Rangers, SODC and most of all our amazing team of volunteers. Special thanks must go to Mr Derek Nixey the landowner who has given the village a free fifteen-year tenancy. Read more ...

Blossom

 

Photo courtesy of Keith Webley

Photo courtesy of Keith Webley

It's the middle of March and already some garden trees in Chinnor are in blossom, either pink or white ornamental cherries with their delicate blooms which are even more noticeable because the trees are not yet in leaf. And already the Magnolias are showing their large buds ready to burst into spectacular flower to transform some lucky peoples' front gardens.I was surprised to discover that Magnolias are such an old family that they have been around for at least 20 million years. And that was before there were many flying insects such as bees to pollinate them, so they relied on the heavier beetles which had already evolved.

Of course all our native British broadleaved trees are flowering plants, and some have small greenish flowers that can easily be overlooked amongst the leaves. But there is one family which generally produces showy flowers and that is the Rose family. Perhaps the tree which is most associated with spring and the old festivals which marked the turning of the year, is the hawthorn with its abundant May blossom. Of the plants cultivated by man, as well as garden roses, this large family includes both apples and pears, as well as plums, cherries and almonds.

In England there used to be many customs associated with hawthorn blossom, and the cover of the book 'Chinnor in Camera' first published in 1988, shows a photograph of children holding their garlands on May Day around a century ago. Inside is the 'garlanding song' they sang as they went around the village. More recently towards the end of the last century, a May Fayre was revived at nearby Kingston Blount. A May King and Queen were chosen and school children displayed the different dances around the be-ribboned Maypole. Read more ... 

Donkey Lane Community Orchard

Our extremely well attended open meeting was held on Wednesday 21st November and such is the level of interest from the Community, we have organised two site visits during the early part of December.

Once these have taken place we will be setting up a small management group in order to progress this exciting project. 

In the background all of the legalities, finance, training and administrative tasks are progressing nicely. The plan is to start clearing the immense amount of rubbish and brambles once we are into the New Year. 

As we believe that there are some significant heritage varieties to be found there, we are approaching this task with great care and sensitivity to ensure that any ‘at risk’ trees are stabilised. 

We will be calling for volunteers once we get started. However if you would rather help with publicity and planning rather than getting your hands dirty please contact us.

A copy of the meeting notes together with a copy of our aims for the orchard can be found here