Founded on the belief that our relationship with our environment is key to protecting it, Common Ground’s programmes are located at the intersection of nature and culture. Their work aims to help people reinvent for themselves a relationship with nature and the land, which is driven, not only by economic imperatives, but also by cultural and ecological sensitivity.

Common Ground pioneers imaginative ways for local knowledge and professional expertise to inform each other. The organisation seeks to inspire people to engage with the richness of everyday places, popular culture, common wild life, ordinary buildings and landscapes. By learning to revalue emotional engagement with the environment Common Ground intend us to become actively involved in its care. Projects include Field Days, Parish Maps, Flora Britannica, Apple Day, Community Orchards, Tree Dressing Day, Confluence and the campaign for Local Distinctiveness.

Community Orchards
Common Ground recognise orchards as embodiments of nature, culture and place, as repositories of local distinctiveness. Since 1990 the Community Orchards programme has promoted ways to save vulnerable old orchards as well as to plant new ones.

Orchards were once widespread throughout the UK but pressure on land for new houses and roads and the availability of cheap fruit from abroad has resulted in the loss of many small orchards. Those in villages and on the edge of towns are prime targets for development.

What is a Community Orchard?
A community orchard is a place run by and for local people. It is a place for communal fruit growing, tree rearing, festive gatherings, playing, contemplation, wildlife watching, animal grazing, skill sharing, building responsibility, nurturing biodiversity, keeping and extending local apple varieties and championing local distinctiveness.

Community orchards are found in cities, towns or villages. They are invaluable to housing estates, industrial estates, hospitals and schools. They enliven the curriculum, improve our diet and can help to speed the recovery of the ill and infirm.

Some feed their fruit and derived products back into the local food economy through box schemes, co-ops or farmers’ markets. Others provide havens for nature or locations for neighbourhood celebrations.

Community orchards are open and accessible at all times. Some are owned or leased for, or by a community group, parish council, local authority or voluntary body. As well as enjoying the environment, local people can share the harvest or profit from its sale, taking joint responsibility for work in the orchard.

Social and Environmental Approach
Small actions such as standing up for an old orchard can have many positive benefits, for example, inventing a new community place, discovering shared strengths, creating a new synergy between nature and culture, reinforcing local distinctiveness and promoting environmental responsibility.

Although these orchards are not focused upon economic fruit production, they might pay for themselves with income generated through the sale of fruit and other products (everything from wild flower seeds to mistletoe).

Common Ground also offers practical advice on how to conserve traditional orchards as well as plant new ones, and suggests a range of new uses for old and endangered orchards. These might include caravanning, nature conservation or horticultural training. The organisation provides support for planting and management of new orchards as well as suggestions on what to do with the fruit.

No Man’s and Cleeve Prior Orchards
Two examples of community orchards are Cleeve Prior and No Man’s Orchards. A scheme to restore 2.4 hectares of an old orchard in Cleeve Prior, Worcestershire, has gradually replanted the site with local, historically important varieties and a greater diversity of fruits. Links with inner city residents who would like to spend a day in the country picking fruit are being forged. The orchard is also a special resource for local schools. Many species of wild life are attracted to the restored grassland and old trees. Local residents have developed practical, artistic and communication skills through building signs, seats, gates and displays.

No Man’s Orchard at Chartham Hatch, Kent is owned by the two parish councils which straddle its 4 hectares. Local people have open access to the orchard and its fruit, and the surplus is harvested by volunteers, pressed and bottled as No Man’s Apple Juice to raise funds. New cider varieties have been established in anticipation of possible future production of ‘Charbledown’ cider. Trees can be adopted for £15 a year by families who can visit the orchard to pick their own fruit. In 2000, the Orchard Management Group received a grant to make a film of the orchard and the ways local people were involved. A wooden snake-shaped bench was carved to mark the parish boundary as it passes beneath the trees; this offers both a welcome resting place and the perfect ‘line’ for the annual inter-parish tug of war.

Community Orchards provide wholesome food, wildlife havens, arenas for communal celebration and inspirational places, where the development of orcharding knowledge can flourish across generations and ethnicity.

www.commonground.org.uk