Wassail 2023

DATE: Sunday 22nd January 2023 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm at the Orchard

Greening Chinnor and the Mid Shires Orchard Group invite you and your family to the annual Winter Wassail for the Donkey Lane Community Orchard! 

The Anglo-Saxon ‘wes haile!’ or ‘wase hail!’ was a hearty wish for good health and fortune. We shout ‘Wassail!’ to toast our apple trees, that they may be healthy and fruitful for the coming year and bring us good harvest and bounty. We also make lots of noise to ward off bad luck and mischievous spirits, so they stay away and don’t steal the fruit!

Cross the railway crossing and enter the Donkey Lane Community Orchard via the ancient trackway… Appreciate the lovely vista of the historic 19th century apple trees in this rural Chiltern's landscape. Enjoy the warm scent of apples as the hodgepodge of windfalls are crushed underfoot. Admire the decorated trees that are the King and Queen of the Orchard, hung with all their finery.

The event is lots of fun and we welcome audience participation. Make a din to scare off mischievous spirits, by banging drums, blowing horns, beating pots and pans and joining in the Wassail song . Assembled children (of all ages!) will scatter a festive seed mix, for the wildlife to enjoy

After the main event, congregate around the Refreshments Stall to enjoy more cider, mulled cider, mulled apple juice, apple juice and cake. Small cash donations are welcomed in return for refreshments, for the Orchard. 

Take a tour of the Orchard

• Take a walk around the Donkey Lane Community Orchard with your hosts
• Visit the historic apple and plum trees and learn more about them
• Discover the site of the old well and the cottages
• Learn how you can help keep this orchard flourishing, join in working parties and enjoy orchard events

You’ve read about Wassails in the Parish Pump; now come along and enjoy one for yourself. Bring along some musical instruments, pots, pans and wooden spoons… anything that will make a noise!

For more information about Wassails, check out he excellent article written by Christine Davis on our our Story page

A Victorian Christmas

 

As Christmas comes around, I began wondering how the Victorian families living in the Orchard area might have celebrated the season. If you remember, the first 'census' story we published told how in 1841 there were over 30 people living in six households on our site. They ranged in age from young children like little Ellen Howlett aged 5, up to her elderly next-door neighbour Mary Gomme aged 85 who was living with her married daughter. Ellen lived in a small cottage with her six older sisters, parents and a brother, so there were lots of hungry mouths to feed. Like most of the working men her father was an agricultural labourer, the poorest paid workers in the whole country. They lived in what was still an almost feudal village, paying rent to their landlord John Allnut. Without a doubt they would be finding it hard to make ends meet.

In the wider world there was a new Queen on the throne, just a young woman and perhaps no-one knew how things were going to turn out. At that time Christmas had almost fallen out of fashion, gone was the old celebration of 'Twelve days of Christmas' with feasting and merriment. It hardly got a mention in the newspapers, and customs such as May Day and Harvest Home were much more celebrated. At this time it could not be taken for granted that you would get Christmas Day off work, much less the extended period we have now. The factories and mines kept going every day of the year but perhaps it was a bit better in the countryside. However, the men received no paid holiday, no state pension, and if there had been wet days in November and December when they couldn't work, very likely no wages at all.

Winters were colder than they are now, over Christmas 1837 snow had blown into Emmington Church preventing the Sunday service. The winter of 1840/41 was a very severe one with ice on the Thames, and through all the winter months there were temperatures considerably below average. Then in 1841, from July into November it was very wet with local flooding later in the year. Not very good years for agricultural workers. Luckily several of the women in our families were lace-makers, and this did give them an extra income which would have made all the difference to the family budget during those bad-weather years.

So how might they have made Christmas special? Read more...

Archaeology at the Orchard

Would you like to help open a ‘window on the past’?

Would you like to find out how an excavation is carried out?

This is an opportunity for you, your friends, family and neighbours to help us find out more about the people and history of the Donkey Lane Community Orchard site.

Working with South Oxfordshire Archaeology Group (SOAG) we will be digging out a series of test pits at the Orchard in December.

All volunteers will be guided through each stage so everyone can learn how an excavation is carried out and your test pit is dug to professional standards.

Even if you don’t dig, there are plenty of other essential roles that can be done whilst sitting and/or in short bursts and without getting too dirty! Anyone can join in; children are most welcome (accompanied by a parent or guardian).

The test pits will be excavated over 2 days Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th December 10am – 3:30pm. Numbers are limited so if you're interested in getting involved, please email Linda at greeningchinnor@gmail.com.

In the case of inclement weather, Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th will be a backup date.