English Local History: an introduction

and other middle-class houses. Of course, there would also be fruit trees in cottage gardens but these groups were usually too small to be mapped as a distinct land use. Another type of orchard was linked with large country houses and it is these which are often the best documented, especially in terms of detailed descriptions of the varieties of fruit trees grown. Chapter 2 investigates farmhouse and commercial orchards before the mid-nineteenth century. These were usually about half an acre or an acre in extent, and almost always very close to the farmhouse, allowing owners to keep a close eye on their crops. The book includes several valuable illustrations of these orchards including a detailed map of 1730 of Boxted Farm and its orchard, near Hemel Hempstead, and another Hertfordshire map of 1700 showing hedgerow fruit trees at Flaunden. There is a particularly interesting reconstruction, by Patsy Dallas, of an orchard described by Mary Birkhead at Thwaite, Norfolk, of 1734 showing the large number of varieties grown including Golden Reinet, Old Pearmain, Nonparil and Biefen. In Chapter 3, the authors used the term ‘orchard century’ to label the period 1850–1950 when orchards in Eastern England reached their greatest extent. This is a fascinating chapter which rediscovers Bedfordshire ‘prune country’; this consisted of large orchards of a small dark cooking plum thought to be a variety of damson, which had been grown locally in farm orchards before becoming commercialised. The chapter stresses the importance of county smallholding estates in encouraging the planting of orchards especially after the First World War. The role of individual entrepreneurs such as Alexander Whitehead and his extensive orchards of Cox’s Orange Pippin apples at Cockayne Hatley in Bedfordshire is also brought to life. Later chapters explore orchards associated with country houses and residential institutions, the making of ciders and jams, the modern history of orchards and the role of the commercial nursery industry in the propagation and popularisation of fruit varieties. A highlight of the book is a detailed history of Aspall cider from the arrival of Clement Chevallier from Jersey in 1728 at Aspall Hall near Debenham, to the present day. The book’s evocative cover illustration Fruit Gardens and Orchard is one of John Nash’s 1930 posters produced for the Empire Marketing Board. The volume is beautifully produced by the University of Hertfordshire Press, and has many effective contemporary and historical photographs and maps throughout. Gerry Barnes and Tom Williamson have carefully analysed and synthesised the evidence they have assiduously collected to write an illuminating and thought-provoking book.