Traditional orchard survey
In the early 1900s, Suffolk had more than 6,000 orchards. This 3-year project is recording how many of those remain and assessing their potential for restoration. To find out why orchards are so important for biodiversity and how the project is progressing, download the
The majority of orchards that are valuable for wildlife in Suffolk are small sites 1 acre or less, and are often managed very little. It is this lack of intensive management that makes them so important for wildlife. Orchards across Suffolk also contain a wealth of varieties of fruit, many of which are no longer widely available, so they are an important source of older varieties. Finally, the wealth of orchards in Suffolk is part of a social and cultural legacy that is bound up with the people and diverse landscapes of the county.
The orchards of Suffolk
Several Traditional Orchards surveys have been set up by county Biodiversity Partnerships, and Suffolk’s is now underway. Every county has its own local traditional orchard form and Suffolk has several very different traditions; examples are the tall standard cherry trees in parkland settings in south Suffolk, ancient cobnut coppices, and numerous small farmhouse orchards, many less than half a hectare, with a rich mix of crop trees. Large commercial orchards are few, but small old orchard sites are now known to be more frequent in this county than was once thought.
Orchard Biodiversity
Biodiverse orchards are a rich mix of ancient tree dependant species; a Sturmer apple tree may be only 60 years old yet have the rot holes, decay and habitats of a veteran tree. The associated habitats such as grassland, scrub, deadwood, ponds and hedges that have been more or less abandoned for decades, and have escaped the chemical spraying routines that made orchards virtually sterile when they were in production, make up the habitat as a whole.
How many orchards ?
Nationally and regionally many orchards have been lost, especially in the last 30 years. In Suffolk an initial desk based study was carried out by the Suffolk Biological Records Centre using the 1st and 2nd edition OS maps have revealed 6,000 old sites across the county. From checking just a few representative parishes and scaling up, there appear to be about one sixth, or 1,000 sites still in some sort of existence, with remaining recognisable orchard trees. If we add in the more recent sites the number may be as high as 1,300 across Suffolk, as many as 10 per parish in the claylands of High Suffolk