Join us in celebrating the launch of the new orchards on Saturday 21 May. You can find out more information here.
Records show that throughout the last century the orchards surrounding Lower Brockhampton Manor decreased in size, with the land being used mostly for grazing livestock. Thanks to a substantial award of £140,000 from Postcode Earth Trust by players of People’s Postcode Lottery and funds from Arts Council England alongside generous National Trust supporters’ donations, we have now reinstated 21 acres of lost orchard.
Through clever and imaginative planting, the first orchard, known as ‘reimagined orchard’, tells different stories of how various fruit trees ended up in the UK. Project Manager, Ellie Jones worked alongside renowned Bristol-based artist Walter Jack and chartered landscape architects Rathbourne, to create both an engaging and intriguing design for the project. Within an apple core structure, five ‘orchard chambers’ have been planted containing unusual and rare varieties of fruit, specially chosen to tell the story of the eating apple from its origins in Kazakhstan to the traditional Herefordshire cider apple. One of the five ‘rooms’ was planted solely with damson trees using a particular variety known as the Shropshire Prune, a local variety which has thrived at Brockhampton over the past sixty years.