Prof Tom Williamson on some discoveries on a visit to the orchard at the The Oval, in Harpenden.
One of the many things about orchards that I failed to appreciate before this project began was just how varied they are – in size, age, purpose and much else. When we think of old orchards, an image of one of those wonderful examples attached to farmhouses comes to mind. But of equal interest are the many which were associated with institutions like colleges and hospitals, providing fruit for the kitchen but also to eat fresh. Many also had a therapeutic role, as places where patients could walk and sit, especially in spring when the trees were decked with blossom.
In the autumn I visited a particularly fine example at The Oval, Harpenden, in Hertfordshire, with Bob Lever and Gerry Barnes. We were very kindly shown around by Helen Nistala and Terry Elphick, who have great plans for the place. The Oval, now the home of Youth With a Mission, a Christian training organisation, began life as a residential children’s home, Highfield, run by National Children’s Homes. It was established in 1913 a short distance from the charity’s Elmfield Sanatorium, which had opened in 1910. Highfield was a replacement for the NCH’s Bonner Road home in Bethnal Green, London. The residential and other buildings were arranged around a central oval of grass. The orchard, which still contains nearly 50 trees, lies to the east of the main area of buildings, on the edge of the site and beside the course of the old Hemel Hempstead branch rail line, closed in 1959. It is adjoined to the west by another, smaller group of fruit trees, fan-trained and arranged in four parallel lines.
The orchard is a beautiful place, with more than fifty trees, and beautifully maintained. While culinary varieties like Bramley Seedling, Lane’s Prince Albert and Dummelor’s Seedling are very well represented, large numbers of dessert varieties are also present, including Sturmer pippin and Laxton’s Fortune. Like all orchards, this one has a more complex history than appears at first sight, one that can be revealed by examining old aerial photographs and maps. The lines of fan-trained examples, now running across an area of mown grass, originally lined the paths in a kitchen garden which has now otherwise vanished; while the main orchard, to the east, falls into two neat sections. That to the south is shown on the Ordnance Survey 6-inch map of 1922 and was probably planted when the children’s home was first established in 1913. The northern section, in contrast, was planted after the end of the Second World War, perhaps around 1948. What is striking is the difference in varieties found in the two sections. The older area is overwhelmingly dominated by culinary and dual purpose types, and mainly rather old ones, developed before 1890. The newer, northern section in contrast contains a higher proportion of dessert apples and, while it does include some old varieties (like Lanes’ Prince Albert), contains a number which were only developed after 1890, such Lord Lambourne, Laxton’s Fortune, Edward VII and Laxton’s Superb, 1907, many of which were closely associated with or developed by Laxton’s nursery in Bedford, some 30 miles to the north.
The differences between the two main sections can be paralleled at a number of other orchards attached to hospitals and the like. Early in the twentieth century the main focus was on cooking apples, but later there was an apparent shift towards dessert varieties, and often a greater range. But the orchard at The Oval also shows us something else: how what appears at first sight to be a single orchard, planted at one point in time, often has a more complex and interesting history.