Benedict Macdonald - Orchard: A Year in England’s Eden

CONTENTS

A YEAR IN ENGLANDS EDEN

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

WilliamCollinsBooks.com

This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2020

Copyright Benedict Macdonald and Nicholas Gates 2020

Map illustrated by Sophie E Tallis

Copyright Sophie E Tallis 2020

Illustrations Alamy Stock Photo

All other illustrations Shutterstock

Extract from Ariel by Sylvia Plath reproduced with permission from the publisher, Faber and Faber Ltd

Benedict Macdonald and Nicholas Gates assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008333737

Ebook Edition August 2020 ISBN: 9780008333744

Version: 2020-08-12

For my parents, Ian and Liz Macdonald. The first of whom patiently helped make over a hundred bird boxes for the orchard. The second of whom patiently read through a hundred drafts of the book.

BENEDICT

For my family, who entertained decades of wild treasures in various states of decay being squirrelled around the home, freezer and garden with extreme patience and enduring enthusiasm.

NICHOLAS

Most importantly, for Nancy and David. Wildlife farmers extraordinaire, whose vision and horticulture created this orchard Eden long before we were fortunate enough to write about it.

Note: to protect the location of this extraordinary ancient orchard, some names and landmarks in this book have been changed.

As rotting windfall apples and frost lie thick on the ground, and the oldest of fruit trees bend under the weight of mistletoe, the orchard begins a new year. A chattering blanket of starlings descend on the bounty of last years fruit, joining bramblings, blackbirds, angry-faced waxwings and intoxicated fieldfares who, drunk on fermented berries, fight one another over their rotting real estate. Even in winter, the orchard is a place of bounty, competition and continuous surprise, most of whose secrets lie hidden deep below the surface.

Orchard is a lyrical account of an ancient English orchard from January to December, celebrating the extraordinary range of animals and plants it supports, which make it one of the richest ecosystems left in Britain. An ancient tradition of collaboration between people and nature makes traditional orchards a unique example of simultaneous agriculture and conservation. If we can rewild Englands orchards favouring organic methods and harvesting with a balanced ecosystem in mind not only wildlife but people will have a far richer England to profit from in the centuries to come.

F iery mist shrouded the drooping furrowed trees. Woodpecker gunfire startled my coffee-primed senses. The song thrush chorus sang so loud, it soon became the jumbled chaos of a dozen raptures. The static fizz of a feeding starling gang carried from the fog-wrapped orchard floor. Well before the sun would rise, Eden was alive.

In a world increasingly starved of life, such moments are special. They burn into our senses. And there are some refuges so cherished, some places so important, some corners of our island so unique, that their wonders must be shared. The orchard is one of those places.

Haunted by creatures that may soon become memories hedgehogs and cuckoos; dormice and bats this orchards diversity eclipses that of most nature reserves or designated wild places. It protects, within its boughs, an ark of animals now almost impossible to find living side by side elsewhere in our dying countryside. Yet, like many of natures best-kept secrets, the orchards discovery came to me as a surprise.

The visit had begun with another painfully early start: pouring water on my own reproachful face, at five oclock in the morning, in suburban Bristol; falling into my clothes, and car, then driving north to Herefordshire the steam of coffee rising. With the sun yet to sail, I nudged my unwilling car into a disused farm gate, bound by twine and locked by ivy. And then I peered beyond.

Beyond my remit to explore, the mournful sigh of a bullfinch sounded from the nearby hedgerow. Then came the chatter of a redstart. What? Youre not supposed to find redstarts here! Cuck-oo. This, too, was the first time Id ever heard this sound in an orchard. Then, the drumming of one, two, three lesser spotted woodpeckers! A sound of the older countryside, this chorus brought me to my senses. It was as if every vanishing song in England had been broadcast all at once. What started as a routine survey had transformed into a journey back in time.

Looking at my watch, it was still only six-thirty in the morning. Sharing my enthusiasm for this newfound refuge with its unknown owners this early in the day might not endear them to my quest to discover its secrets. Instead I opened my beaten green thermos and perched quietly on a gatepost.

The mist fermented as the amber sun burned the ridgeline of the Malverns. Finally, Edens curtain was lifted. This was, most certainly, an orchard. But in place of serried, planted ranks, chopped limbs and neat grass, lay a jumbled, magical chaos. Cutting the orchard in two, a hedgerow of two centuries ago had matured into a line of serpentine oaks. Enormous dead trunks stood where previous apples had perished; encrusted with bracket fungi and cocooned in nettles. The oldest trees were riven with the concentric homes of woodpeckers. The hedgerows were so thick, the sun shunned them: you could scarcely have driven a tank through their midst. This was an orchard gone wild.

Enraptured, I wandered along the lane, seeking the owner of Eden. As the lane turned a corner, the twin peaks of a hop kiln, a building designed for drying hops for brewing, towered into view. A raucous colony of jackdaws erupted from its summit. Before me lay the kind of garden you see in photographs from before the Second World War, or the kind of farm you discover in the rambling countryside of Europes oldest corners.