24 CONTEXT 180 : JUNE 2024 an orchard nearby. As on the Ordnance Survey maps, they are recognisable from the neat, ordered arrangement of trees, some arranged in a quincunx pattern (in fives), as seems to be the case in the orchard at Great Barrington. Some were clearly decorative features; this seems to be the case with the orchard in the iron-age hill fort at Knole, where Thomas Chester Esq had built a new manor house in the later 16th century, moving from the village site in Almondsbury. While an orchard might have supplied a small cash sum for the farmer, it was mainly a source of fruit for the household and for the production of cider for the house and for farm workers. The writer of the earliest volume of The Victoria History of the County of Gloucester, published in 1907, commented that ‘a good deal of fruit is grown by small holders and owners’, noting particularly that apples and plums ‘are grown in large quantities for cider and perry, and orchard planting is on the increase’. The writer also noted that ‘speaking generally, orchards have not been as well-managed as might have been the case, and have not been regularly replenished with young trees to take the place of those that have become unserviceable’. Measuring traditional orchards Modern concern about the disappearance of traditional orchards, which are valuable wells of biodiversity, stimulated their designation in 2007 as protected habitats. Natural England and the National Trust led a research project with the People’s Trust for Endangered Species to compile an inventory of surviving examples. They used modern technological tools: scans of the 25-inch OS maps drawn between 1892 and 1914, AI to identify orchards marked on them and aerial photography to find surviving traditional orchards. Natural England’s report on the Traditional Orchard Project in England was published in 2011 and the results mapped; only 1,521 ha (3,759 acres) of traditional orchards were identified in Gloucestershire. The National Trust reworked an analysis of the 25-inch maps with a wider remit, comparing the results with the Habitat Action Plan map, and published an interim report, Blossom over Time, in 20223. It estimated Gloucestershire orchards before the first world war at 8,382 ha, an estimate not very different from Dudley Stamp’s; he had calculated that the acreage of orchard had increased from 4,702 ha in 1875 to over 8,094 ha by 1905.4 Planting an orchard was one response to the falling prices of agricultural production in the later 19th century. After 1918 the area of orchards started to decline: the Ministry of Agriculture returns for the county in 1939 gave 5,901ha, and after 1950 the fall gathered pace. The National Trust estimate was that only 1,702 ha survived in Gloucestershire. Cheltenham was one of 10 major towns and cities identified in Blossom over Time where the loss of traditional orchards was most severe. London headed the list, followed by Maidstone and then Cheltenham: 294.33 ha of orcharding before 1914 had fallen to just 3.31 ha. Gloucester is also on this list, with 183.14 ha reduced to 3.43 ha. Sandfields and Rowanfield In 1944 Gordon Payne, Gloucestershire County Council planning officer, compiled a comprehensive survey of the county (Gloucestershire: a survey) with post-war planning requirements obviously in mind. Among the county’s resources he recorded areas of market gardening and of good horticultural land. He divided the county into 17 areas; in only four areas were orchards significant, one of which was the Cheltenham market gardening area where ‘apples and plums are important’. In Uckington, 5.4 per cent of the land was orcharding; to the north-west of Cheltenham it was nine per cent; Swindon village had 6.2%, but there was a much smaller area in Prestbury. Payne regretted ‘that considerable tracts of this highest quality horticultural land has been absorbed by building development’. What would he say in 2024? Payne knew that orchards were being lost between the two world wars, not only because of economic conditions, but because they provided relatively flat and easily prepared sites for housebuilding. Cheltenham Borough Council was under pressure to clear some of the town centre properties designated as slums; ³ Tom Dommett (2022) Blossom Over Time (National Trust Interim Report) ⁴ Gerry Barnes and Tom Williamson (2022) English Orchards, quoting L Dudley Stamp (1948) The Land of Britain Rowanfield: houses had replaced the orchards by 1950
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