The Heritage Orchard Year: Exploring the Archives
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- Heritage Orchard: Introduction
- Dorset's Orchard Heritage
- Exploring the Archives
- Animating Research
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Maps
The 1839 Tithe maps
Tithe maps vary greatly in ‘artistic’ content and the orientation can also vary which can make comparisons with the OS maps a little difficult. Local knowledge is invaluable in locating the map in the landscape. Showing the maps to as many people as possible is a really good way to start. Making copies of the map to colour or write names on will make comparisons easier.
Detail of 1839 Netherbury tithe map
The apportionments for the 1839 tithe map (below) showing landowner, occupier, field name, cultivation, area (in acres, roods and perches) and the tithe (shown in pounds, shillings and pence.)
Apportionments for the 1839 tithe map
Powerstock 1895 OS map
The six inch maps are an accessible size to useful to make visual comparison with the tithe maps. To make an accurate record of acreage cross referencing with the 1902 OS map gives field sizes. However several maps would need to be consulted to cover a whole parish.
Detail of the 1895 Ordnance Survey map
Symondsbury village 1902 OS map
1/25,000 OS maps have a great deal of detail. Orchards are shown as trees in a grid pattern and field acreage is recorded. It is therefore possible to count up the acreage of orchard for a series of key years, which will help to plot their increase or decline.
Detail of 1902 Symondsbury OS map
In terms of charting orchard history it would be useful to look at the pre-war and post-war periods, that is the 1930’s and late 1940’s/50’s, as these years saw significant changes in land use. The Common Agricultural Policy also had a tremendous effect on orchards and maps of the area in the 1960’s and 1970’s should demonstrate further changes in Dorset’s orchards.
Getting hold of maps
All the maps mentioned on this site are kept at the Dorset History Centre as originals or copies. Some tithe map apportionments are available as transcripts and can be downloaded as word documents. A visit to the History Centre is essential to get the feel of the actual thing and also to verify your research first hand.
You can buy copies of maps and build up a local history resource within your parish. Your project and its resources can then be archived at your local history centre.
The reprographics department of the Dorset History Centre can scan maps and put them onto a C.D. You will need a computer with a sizable drive and memory to view them but digital copies can make maps very accessible.
During Heritage Orchard Year research workshops were able to show maps on a laptop computer and thus make 25 maps easily available at one time. Some maps can be printed out or copied for research purposes but others may be restricted by copyright.
Research undertaken during Heritage Orchard Year will be archived at the Bridport History Centre in January 2006 (including maps and apportionments).
Old Photographs
A number of companies sell photographs of villages and country life. Some companies like the Barrie Collection have no restrictions on reproduction.
Local History Centres and Museums are another source, as are local history groups who may have their own collection of photos or postcards. It is unlikely that photographs will be catalogued as orchard images but as the village centres were often full of orchards it is possible to find them recorded ‘accidentally’. If you find a good image that informs or adds to your research take a contemporary photo from the same vantage point and then you can compare the change in the landscape. Images of orchards are rare and would be of interest to the Heritage Orchard archives.
Symondsbury circa 1900 shows the orchard behind the school, which today has 2 remaining Bramley trees, probably the saplings in the foreground.
Census and Parish Records
The census of 1841 ties in well with the 1839 Tithe map if you want a broader picture of an individual recorded there. It gives the occupation of the head of the household and ages of other members. (However the ages of individuals were rounded up for this census so you would need to go to the 1851 for accuracy.) Later census' also give addresses and occupation for all the household including school children who are listed as scholars.
Registers of Birth Deaths and Marriages and many other documents are available at your local History Centre. The Dorset Online Parish Clerk is an excellent resource which allows you to examine document transcripts online and also gives you the location of the original document so you can verify your research. Family research locates the history of orchards within a real community. It is important to be methodical when researching by noting down any entry accurately. This means laying it out just as it appears, including mistakes and any illegible words. The source should also be accurately recorded. Avoid guesswork like the plague, it can lead to a terrible muddle, there may be inferences you can draw, but that pleasure should come only when the ground work is done. Contact your Local Family History Group.
Estate and Manorial Records can provide invaluable information for your research. These include maps, plans, surveys, rentals, court rolls and correspondence produced by estate administrations.
In Dorset there are collections of documents ranging from the papers of local farmers and minor gentlemen, through to the grand estates of Weld of Lulworth Castle, Bankes of Kingston Lacy and the Fox-Strangways (the Earls of Ilchester families) to the Duchy of Cornwall estate archive. Many of these records are held in the Dorset History Centre but others may be found in The National Archives and adjacent county record offices. Searching the Access to Archives database will give you a good idea of what is available. www.A2A.org.uk
You may come across records still held by estates and individuals. To discover what's out there, talk to people and display your work in progress at local events. Publicise your project in parish magazines, newspapers and local radio.
Oral History
"Blossom time. Going back fifty years, what we call Hope Hill and looking down this valley it was a picture about 20th May. It was a picture. all down through here. It went from here to Slape Manor, both sides of the road. There is a lane there, Hatches Lane, there was apple trees at Hope Farm nearly all that side of the hill both sides of the road was apple trees."
James Crowden’s interviews with Nick Poole of West Milton and Norman Purchase of Netherbury, were undertaken during Heritage Orchard Year. Their stories about cider and orchards add the human element with all the details, complexity, emotion and humour that can’t be found except amongst local people. Talking to people was a key activity during the year as a way of stimulating interest in parish research, finding clues that led to further discovery and beginning the task of charting the decline of orchards in Dorset.
Recording memories in this way is called oral history transcripts, sound recordings or film can be added to the archives and so be available for future researchers.
Many local people can tell you about the trees and orchards of their childhood. They may recall varieties and uses for apples. Their views about the decline of orchards will spring from first hand experience. Retired farmers can tell you the reasons they planted orchards or grubbed them out and the next generation, who are farming now, can discuss more recent influences on the land. You need to ask specific questions to get the best results and it is important not to anticipate the answers...so that you let them tell you how it was. It's best to note down everything and if possible read it back to the person to make sure it is accurate. Interviews can be recorded using a mini disc or video recorder but taking an oral history requires that you learn a little about the methods and implications of working in this way.
Norman Purchase. 1950’s commercial cidermaking - Netherbury
"Nearly every place made cider, and down at Hope Farm in the cellar, people brought the apples in with horse and cart, and we always put them up in the loft. We had a large apple loft and you could get ten ton up there easy. We'd grind their apples with water power from the mill then press them out. After that we had an engine."
"There was two commercial cider makers in the village. Warren's went as far as Weymouth selling cider but Mr Oliver he sold his to Palmer's Pubs. The last three pubs was the Tiger in Barrack St in Bridport, there was the Seven stars opposite the Tiger and The Robin Hood down by the Picture Palace. That was the last three that they supplied, because Palmer's, as the licences changed, they stopped the cider and went over to Whiteways, didn't they. Mr Oliver came in 1922 and he had foot and mouth at Lytton Cheney so he couldn't bring no cows down, and he told me that the apples on the farm saved his day, said he made 200 hogsheads of cider. The barrels they used to get them from Bristol, oak ones, some had whiskey, tip them out, same with the port, always left some in the barrel. Some was chestnut,come on a lorry two hogsheads and 'dree hogsheads, then we had 36's 18's, 9’ers, 4 and a half. Hogsheads is really 54 gallons. We used to bottle the cider here with champagne corks, we never added any sugar or yeast, we had to wire them down as it was so powerful. Bottles came from Devenish at Weymouth, we used to get a van load, 27 dozen to a hogshead of cider. A bit bigger than a wine bottle, corks from Bristol.
Mr Oliver learnt his cider making at Long Ashton. Research Station. Finished now. He went up there on a course, as he was farming. I expect Mr Warren went as well."
Nick Poole - the Cider Club - West Milton
"We thought we would do some pigs and so we rented a bit more land, but along with this land came an orchard. It had ten trees, ancient trees. An old boy who used to make cider until the early 'sixties, he came round and he could pretty well name every tree in the orchard, mostly Dabinett, Chisel Jersey, Bulmer's Norman, traditional bitter-sweet apples. I knew then I had to raise some capital to invest in some equipment, so I just went round speaking to neighbours in West Milton to see if anybody else was interested in forming a cider club, and sure enough twenty people put money into the kitty and we bought our first lot of equipment. The money we raised wasn't enough to produce a traditional press so we made one ourselves which has been a great success."
"The first year we produced cider we made about 100 gallons and we were all absolutely amazed that it was very drinkable and very enjoyable. It also had the strange effect of bringing people together who wouldn't otherwise meet. When it comes to cider making they all turn up and enjoy picking the apples. It works very well as a community project. All those that have put into the kitty are entitled to take their cider away and we share out after it is matured and ready to drink. We give a lot of cider to local functions for fund raising events and then of course we have the Powerstock cider festival."
"There's been a great revival of interest in local cider. Whether it is enough to support orchards on a big scale, I very much doubt. But this traditional country craft will, I hope, be kept going for the next generation and will be around in another thousand years."
Photographic credits:
Portraits of Norman Purchase and Nick Poole © George Wright Ilchester Arms circa 1900: The Barrie collection Reproduction of Tithe Maps by kind permission of the Dorset History Centre