My Own Orchard at Lyndenlea

Well, I say "orchard"...

In fact, I had but one apple tree (pictured right) in the garden behind Lyndenlea in Mangotsfield. It was of the Grenadier cultivar (Malus domestica 'Grenadier'), an early-season English cooking apple that originated in Buckinghamshire in the mid-19th Century.

There used to be a second apple tree – I've no idea what variety – behind the garage, off to the right of the photograph, but it died many years ago and I only remember it as a rotting stump which I dug out during a fit of landscaping in the summer of 2003.

What might have been

Until about 1960 there was a proper but small orchard behind the garden, and although it never belonged to the house, it very nearly did. It was triangular in plan and adjoined open fields on its other two sides.

Upon one of these two fields 25 houses were built, the last of which adjoined the orchard. The owners of Lyndenlea at that time quite understandably didn't want the garden of this new house extending along the back of their own, so they attempted to buy the orchard. But the other landowner was also attempting to buy it, and by virtue of his various contacts he succeeded. No trace of the orchard now remains.

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