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I am always amazed at how it is possible to come across unexpected connections.
Last Thursday I worked as a poll clerk for the first time. The polling station to which I was allocated was in Haverhill, a town I don’t know that well. In West Suffolk, it is close to the borders with Cambridgeshire and Essex. The area was one of housing developed apparently around the late 1990s / early 2000s. After a while I noticed some patterns to the street names. One such pattern was of names of various fruit varieties. My fellow poll clerk was a local resident who told me of other local fruit street names not in the area covered by our polling station.
The fruit variety street names are Bergamot Road, Monarch Close, Pearmain Walk, Victoria Road, Cox’s Close, White Caville (a misspelling of Calville Blanc, an apple), Spartan Close, Russett (another misspelling!) Close, Grenadier Road, Bramley Road, Crispin Close. There is also Apple Acre Road and Chivers Road, along with Strawberry Fields (Chivers grew strawberries and other soft fruit).
I was informed that the roads were built on the site of a Chivers orchard which was originally sold for farmland but was then sold on for housing. The Chivers family sold the Histon jam factory and farms in 1959, buying most of the farms back in 1961. At one point the Chivers family farmed over 6,000 acres, largely given over to fruit production. As the 1930 silent film “From the Orchard to the Home” clearly shows it was an integrated system. Hives were kept in the orchards to provide bees to pollinate the fruit. They kept (and won prizes for) a range of livestock. Chickens provided eggs for lemon curd and mayonnaise but also ranged free in the orchards, eating insects and fertilising the soil. Large White and Middle White pigs were also given the free run of the orchards, also fertilising the soil, and eating fallen fruit and some of the factory’s waste products.
I lived in Histon for some years and immediately became aware of both the jam factory and the Chivers family farms. What I was not aware of was the wide geographical area in which the farms were situated.
This is definitely a topic for more research. I would also be keen to hear from anyone who has any information / memories of these orchards / farms.
Monica Askay
May 2019