Swavesey Community Orchard
The idea for our community orchard followed on from a survey of historical orchards in and around our village. Approximately 90% of the predominantly plum and apple orchards have been lost since the 1950’s. Community volunteers contacted several local landowners and organisations and, eventually, with the support of Swavesey Parish Council, were able to secure a lease on a 1.9-acre field which already had public access via a public footpath.
With support from The Heritage Lottery Fund and Orchard East the orchard began life in autumn 2019 when approximately 100 village residents including families and children planted 40 heritage fruit tree cultivars. Daffodil bulbs were also planted a few weeks later. In the spring and summer of 2020 an ecological survey of the orchard identified 44 different species of flora including the relatively rare Pyramidal orchid. Many species of insects were also recorded.
The orchard is mown only once per year to encourage an increase in biodiversity. We have seen a huge increase in the number of villagers and visitors walking through the orchard with many positive comments made both in person and on social media.
In the autumn 2020 we planted a further 15 fruit trees and started a cordon of apples and pears in order to further increase the interest in visitors. Our vision for the community orchard, in terms of increasing the natural biodiversity, coincides very well with that of Natural Cambridgeshire and so the opportunity to access funding to replace a small number of trees which had succumbed to a sequence of flooding and drought and to increase the visual aspect of our site with additional daffodils, snowdrops and fritillaria was very opportune!
The bulbs were planted before Christmas with the support of villagers, and we hope to plant the trees and a new fruit tree espalier before the end of January. The next stage of our project is to develop a wetland section of the field to create a pond and hibernacula.
For more information about Swavesey Community Orchard, you can download this leaflet below.
