History

The Eakring Community Orchard site is leased to Eakring Parish Council for a nominal rent by Eakring Farming Ltd. and was planted in December 2020.

Our new orchard is on the site of an earlier one and a single old pear tree survives in the centre.

In the 1930s Nottinghamshire had substantial areas of commercial orchards as well as small domestic orchards attached to most farms and small holdings.

The main commercial orchards were on the red clay soil of the Keuper marl running north from Nottingham and Woodborough, through Lowdham and Southwell to Tuxford.

Eakring doesn't seem to have had substantial commercial orchards, though it sits on the western edge of the Keuper marl, but it certainly had numerous smaller orchards throughout the village.

In 2022, senior residents can point out areas now used for housing and gardens which were orchards in their childhoods. Old trees surviving from those earlier orchards are still producing fruit in many gardens.

From an article by K. C. Edwards, M.A., F.R.G.S. in the July 1942 issue of 'The Nottinghamshire Countryside':

The Tuxford district is the largest of the fruit growing areas and includes the parishes of Askham, East Markham, Markham Clinton, Tuxford, Egmanton and Laxton. East Markham holds the distinction of being the parish with the largest acreage of orchard land in Nottinghamshire. Plums, apples (especially Bramley Seedlings), gooseberries add strawberries are the chief types grown. During the season there is a vigorous traffic to Doncaster, Sheffield and other parts of the West Riding, to Manchester and to the Derbyshire coalfield. In the past, in good years marked by a glut of fruit, small quantities have been sent to Covent Garden. The loading of the fruit wagons at local railways stations, done mostly at night, reaches a feverish haste and the moving of more than 30 tons a night at these stations was not uncommon some years ago but road transport organized by wholesale fruiterers, has since reduced the shipments by train.

In Nottinghamshire the grass orchard is customary and gives good results, ensuring, it is claimed, perfection of colour in the case of the apple crop. Smaller orchards are often grazed by poultry, but under-planting with small fruit is seldom found, scarcely 150 acres being treated in this way. Since large-scale growers are few there is an increasing tendency to combine fruit production with market gardening and worked in this way the orchards of the county will doubtless survive. The Nottinghamshire grower has contributed substantially to the progress of fruit cultivation, for a number of widely known types originated in the county. Among them is the Bramley Seedling apple (the parent tree of which may still be seen at Southwell), the Laxton strawberry and the Merryweather damson.

Sources

Historic England Aerial Photo Explorer
https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photos/

The Woodborough Heritage website
https://www.woodborough-heritage.org.uk/orchardsofnottinghamshire.html

K. C. Edwards, M.A., F.R.G.S. in the July 1942 issue of 'The Nottinghamshire Countryside' published by The Notts Rural Community Council.

Land Utilisation Survey Of Britain 1931-1935
https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/maps/sheet/lus_stamp/eng_lus_046