The weather has been gorgeous and everything is growing merrily, and we hope soon to hold a third meeting. This will be on site and at the weekend and will be followed by a meeting in the village hall once the now imminent transfer of land has taken place. Meanwhile we have had further positive interest from grant-making bodies: see the links on this page.

An important question has been asked by the Phillimore Estate. In what condition should the land be made available to us? Ploughed or seeded? Organic or not? Please contribute your views by email or by leaving a comment on this page. One good local source of wildflower grass mixtures is http://www.wildflowerfarms.com/

Please continue to refer interested friends to this website and get them to sign up for the email newsletter!

Our second meeting on 5 March made some good progress. There was agreement that 'The Friends of Dunsden Orchard' (FODO) should be our name. It was decided that, at least initially, meetings would be held on a monthly basis and that they would be open to all.

A small annual membership fee of £10 for families and £5 for individuals will be collected. Planting will not be possible until the Autumn, but it is likely that some soil improvement will be required first. Samples will be sent off shortly to verify this. There was support for the idea of sponsored trees and it is hoped we might offer a professional pruning course. A noticeboard should be provided on site as well as gates from Dunsden Green and the village hall. We received a fascinating list of cherry varieties once grown at Bryant's Farm by the Ford family, complete with comments such as "Frogmore White: poor flavour, insipid!" Napoleons, on the other hand are to be recommended.

We are now actively looking for people to join a small infomal committee of people keen to help get the project off the ground. Duties will not be onerous, but without an official Secretary, Chairman and Treasurer we will be unable to seek grants. If you are interested please send an email now to parish council Chairman David Woodward

It is hoped that our next meeting will include a site visit. Check back here for confirmation, but it will probably be on a Sunday afternoon in mid-April. 

'Friends of Dunsden Orchard' (FODO) was one suggestion - albeit with a slightly hobbity ring - at the last meeting of the Parish Council. Maybe you have your own ideas? You can make comments on this page. The PC gave its enthusiastic support to the orchard and to our next meeting on Monday March 5. The meeting will aim to elect an organising committee as well as continuing to build the list of supporters who may be prepared to get involved once the actual work of planting out the orchard begins.

The committee's first steps will be to decide how it will operate, before planning a timeline for the project and putting in grant applications.

Don't forget, our next meeting is on Monday March 5 at 8pm in the Village Hall. There's still time to remind people who couldn't quite make it last time. You can also download a poster here. Please print it out and display it if you can.

There was an enthusiastic attendance of around 30 people at the first ever meeting of Eye & Dunsden Community Orchard. Guest speaker Gillian Coombs of Cross Lanes Fruit Farm in Mapledurham described the orchard year, highlighting some of the many opportunities for community involvement. David Woodward and Sara Granshaw outlined their research into community orchards, citing many intriguing possibilities from apple bobbing to village picnics, wassailing by Morris Men and natural play areas for children. Dunsden WI kindly provided refreshments.

A vote was taken and there was unanimous agreement that creating a community orchard was an excellent idea. A date for a second meeting has been tentatively fixed for Monday March 5 at 8pm in Dunsden Village Hall. It is hoped this meeting will form a working party to make further progress with the planned orchard.

You can get full details of the plan by viewing the PDF slides from the meeting

A fascinating picture is beginning to emerge of patterns of cherry growing locally. We know that at the Maharajah's Well in Stoke Row a cherry orchard was planted in the 1860s to maintain the well given to local people by the Maharajah of Benares. The International Tree Foundation has been active recently replanting cherry trees there. We have also been told that there were once cherry orchards at Emmer Green, just on the edge of Reading, and almost in our parish.

Slightly further afield, in Harwell, there were once many commercial cherry orchards flourishing on soil rich in greensand, and we have been speaking to a nurseryman whose grandfather supplied the growers there with trees. This image (courtesy of the Museum of English Rural Life) may well be of cherry picking in Harwell.

Just one commercial cherry orchard remains in Oxfordshire today (Q Gardens at Milton Hill, near Abingdon) growing some 20 different modern varieties, with an extended two month season.  Perhaps we should revive the tradition of cherry trees locally, growing a traditional variety? A specialist nursery has offered to propogate trees for us, if only the right Oxfordshire variety could be found.

Do you have any knowledge of cherry orchards at Emmer Green or nearby in Oxfordshire? Do you know what varieties were grown and when and why the orchards ceased to exist? Are there any old trees remaining for which you know the variety? We would be delighted to hear from you. Please email d.woodward@rdg.ac.uk