The Dwarf Orchard

Just about everything regarding the Dwarf Orchard (anyone else find that name just plain funny?) is a tangled mess. If only it was just the weeds.

It's history is hardly straightforward. It started out as a nice (much larger, by the sound of it) orchard that once belonged to Anne of Denmark (I vaguely remember it, alongside the Queen's House, being a 'Sorry I got angry, Pumpkin,' gift from her husband James I after he shouted at her for accidentally killing his favourite dog. We've all been there...) The man in charge was William Boreman, who was, BTW, responsible for the planting of the ancient chestnut trees we're all so concerned about just now, and by all accounts it was A Bit Nice.

It had roundy flowerbeds, a water feature (wonder if it was Charles I's comedy fountain...) proper paths and a mound with a black mulberry - the cutting-edge tree du jour at the time. They stuck a fence around it to stop the deer chomping the flowers and it was all very bijou.

It was given to Greenwich Hospital in 1707 - for use as a graveyard, but the Admiralty just couldn't resist the lure of development. I'm guessing that the result is the houses along the side of the Park up Maze Hill these days, which would have made the Orchard much bigger then than it is now. The article I read tactfully says that after WWII, when it was used as allotments, it " reverted through 'natural regeneration' towards bramble, scrub and sycamore woodland." That translates as "it's been totally neglected."

Well. Not quite. There have been some attempts to get this poor relation of Greenwich Park back to some kind of order. The council, who bought it in 1976, seems to have been a bit of a low point.

They leased it to Greenwich Environment Forum, which was quite enthusiastic at first, but slowly dwindled to one person, and the politics moved in. An acre of heavy weeds is an awful lot for one person to handle, and it all went very pear-shaped. I don't know all the details, which is probably a good thing.

After 30 years of campaigning, the orchard was returned to the park by Greenwich Council in 2007 (in what, on paper at least, sounds like an very silly ceremony) but by the point of the formal handover (April 2008) the wildlife had already settled in for the summer. Then they discovered the dreaded Japanese Knotweed - which needs the intensity of treatment reserved for rabies and bird 'flu.

So - what now? Well, it's finally ready to start being cleared. The brambles, nettles, ash - and those sodding sycamores (my own personal bete-noire) - have to go. The plan is to clear it out, find out exactly what's underneath, then try to restore what once was - the sweetness of miniature fruit trees, the buzzing of beehives and all-round general loveliness.

And you can help. Between Jan 19th - 21st, a three-day intensive gardening project is going on. The perfect opportunity to poke around part of Greenwich's history and work off a few of those Christmas pounds at the same time with the British Trust Conservation Volunteers. If you're interested, give Warren Young a call on 07740 899 614 or email him at W.Young@btcv.org.uk

Twelfth Night

A flimsy excuse to include a pic I'd forgotten I'd taken - of a jolly little sapling in Greenwich Park, which somebody lovely had decorated, clearly just for me...

Those baubles will have to come down by tonight - or bad luck will befall the park...

A Slightly Worrying Thought...

Folks, I'm beginning to wonder if we haven't been slightly barking up the wrong tree with the Equestrian Events in the Park in 2012.

A little piece on the back page of the Friends of Greenwich Park newsletter has begun a few alarm bells ringing - that in concentrating all efforts on watching a temporarily big event in four years' time, we've taken our eye off another ball - and one with permanent implications.

A project whose designers openly admit will damage part of the park, change the way it looks AND lose mature trees permanently and irrevocably.

What is this project? The new Sammy Ofer Wing of the National Maritime Museum which we discussed recently. If you recall, they're going to knock down some Victorian buildings and build a new, unexciting but not particularly offensive wing to house - well - not very much as far as I can tell.

A cafe, shop and a 'greatest hits' section for those too lazy to actually visit the museum properly. Admittedly there will be some good new archives, too, but I find the whole project a bit pointless really - something dreamed up because a millionaire gave a load of cash to the museum and, presumably, wanted something named after him instead of spending it on something they really need like staff wages or exhibitions.

All in all, I wasn't wild about the concept but I wasn't going to be lying down in front of the bulldozers over it.

What I hadn't noticed, though, was where they're going to put the new entrance ramp. Straight through one-third of the longest herbaceous border in London. Yup, folks, that lovely long flower border that runs the entire length of the museum/Queens House part of the park. (see above.)

The Friends' newsletter also states that it also involves "removal of the boundary fence" - hang on - isn't the boundary 'fence' ancient wall at that point?

Finally, two mature turkey oaks are for the chop. Now, I can't deny - and I've been to look at these trees - that they're not the most exciting specimens in the park. They're not truly aged - though any tree that size isn't exactly young, either. But this gradual erosion of large trees is, IMHO, not a good thing. Architects always include trees in their plans to make it look like their buildings are prettier than they actually are - but they're always those stupid dwarf varieties that don't get in the way of anything.

We are losing our large trees - from roads, from borders, from gardens. Surely a Royal Park must be somewhere that grand, majestic specimens can stretch their leaves? Now - these two are on the NMM side of that wall, so I can't really moan about them (even though, of course, that's exactly what I'm doing.)

But what the hell is Royal Parks doing, even considering a plan that involves damaging a fabulous, stunning herbaceous border and, possibly an ancient wall (personally I can't see how you can lose the border and not the wall...)

The Friends' newsletter says that they went to a presentation where they were told all the marvellous goodies the new wing will bring - and the bad news about the border. They say they are concerned, but they don't say what they're going to do (if anything) about this.

Proposals are being put before LBG for planning permission 'before the end of the year.' But where are Royal Parks in this? Why aren't they kicking up one hell of a stink?

Maybe they, too, have been so busy with the Olympics that they haven't noticed this either. The NMM have realised that now is a good time to bury bad news.

Money talks, it seems, when it comes to destroying Royal Parks.

...And Mellow Fungifulness...

Further to my post last week about Lovely Autumn, I'm getting soppy again today. Scared of Chives has sent me some fab pictures of the park all dressed up in its golden finery and the suns's shining. I love Greenwich Park all year round but there's something special about it now that's truly glorious.

I managed to miss out on the chestnuts this year - by the time I got there, they were plump and ripe - but mainly gone - perhaps it's the credit crunch that has made us begin to remember that age-old source of food, wildlife (though no one seems to have tucked into the hundreds of squirrels yet... )

The collection of sweet chestnuts by locals has been going on in Greenwich Park for centuries - though the park keepers now frown on the other age-old tradition of beating the trees 'to encourage growth.' I reckon the second week of October is optimum time for nuts being just about ripe but not already harvested by armies of enterprising Chinese grannies. Better put a note to myself in next year's diary...

But there are other foods to be found in the hedgerows around here (and yes, there are a few still left.) Elderberries have been amazing this year, as have rowans. And the wet weather has brought out the funghi. Dave spotted this strange specimen:

and though I wouldn't be too keen to try it, you never know. I once watched on in horror as someone harvested a giant growth on the side of an oak tree that my mum would have given me a smack for if I'd touched as a child, pronounced it a 'chicken-of-the-woods' and pan-fried it with garlic. It looked far scarier than the above, but you never can tell. And yes - it did taste just like chicken.

To be honest I'm too much of a wuss to take on funghi - there are too many varieties on the wrong end of the yummy/belly-ache scale, but people who would know their chanterelles and ceps from their fly agaric and their death caps are the curious London Foragers who I have written about before. I admire their style, (roast chestnut ice cream - mmmm...) but I'm still not touching any toadstools. Especially not the ones that appeared in my, ahem, rather ancient doormat last week (ick.)

A very good guide to dull-but-tasty versus pretty-but-deadly mushrooms is the UK Safari page, though for clarity I prefer the Northern Ireland Fungus Group's site, which also has good tips for harvesting - I'm guessing the main species will be the same. Cheaper, though perhaps a tad riskier, than the stall on Blackheath Farmers Market...

As Scared of Chives's pic below shows - we have short, crisp days with bright, low sun and breath-catchingly cold walks to look forward to. And they don't cost anything, either...

Anglo Saxon Burial Mounds

If you couldn't be the first son of a wealthy landowner in the 18th and 19th Centuries, and you had a liking for the quiet life, it was generally useful to miss out being the second son, with all its attendant having-to-go-into-the-army-ness, and skip straight to being third, where the chances were that you would inherit a nice little "living" as a clergyman, make the odd sermon, have a cute little cottage, chat up Jane Austen heroines and be left alone to indulge genteel pursuits such as astronomy, botany - or archaeology.

I know very little indeed about the Reverend James Douglas, but I'm guessing he was a third son. I can see him now, standing in his pulpit in his flowing black robes and flappy black bow round his neck. He's making a very dull sermon, and willing St Alpheges church bell to signal the end of the service, so he can don his little flat hat with its shallow round crown, lace up his gaiters and stride to the hill in Greenwich Park, ready for his Grand Excavation...

It's 22nd January, 1784 and the Rev. Douglas is all a-quiver about around 50 strange-looking domes on the west side of the park and covering about an acre, which have miraculously survived Le Notre's remodelling and peep up mysteriously through the long grass. There are a few others dotted around the Observatory. Some are conical, others more rounded. Douglas is particularly excited because he has gained permission to excavate them. He as his notebook at the ready, some burly blokes with pickaxes, and he's ready...

The excitement mounts as he opens about 18 of them and Hallelujah! He finds some bits and bobs! An iron knife and some remains of an old shield. A spearhead - "one of the largest I ever found; fifteen inches long and two broad to the socket." Further grubbing around uncovers a braid of auburn hair, some vegetable mould, which he supposes was the remains of a casket and some pieces of cloth with a herring-bone pattern. He also finds some glass beads - a couple of blue-green transparent ones, and one each of white opaque and browny-red opaque. No bones.

Perhaps this is because someone has beaten him to it. According to a suspicious Hasted, about 70 years before Douglas started digging, the park keeper, one Mr Hearne quietly did a little digging himself and "no doubt removed many valuable relics..."

Who can tell. Douglas was happy enough with his find - and at least in 1784 there were still fifty of the things to dig up. If you look at the picture above (from an intriguing set sent to me by Jeff and taken from the airship - more pics where that came from another day...) the best we can boast now is around half a dozen and you'll need to click on the pic to even see them.

Time has not been kind to these burials. Doubtless a few of them would have been destroyed when Le Notre's giant park plan was fulfilled, but far more of them disappeared in the building of the Kent Water Works reservoir in 1844. Admittedly there was an outcry at the loss of so many mounds, and the reservoir was moved a bit after the issue of the destruction of the park was brought to the attention of Parliament (anyone getting that feeling of deja-vu?)

Princess Sophia, who was grace-and-favour Ranger of the Park at the time, gave permission for it to go in the park (instead of the heath) and twelve barrows were flattened by enthusiastic workmen before another outcry forced an order to cease and desist. They had to put the mounds back, but they didn't do a very good job of it and the Hon. Sidney Herbert, Secretary of the Admiralty, had an awkward time trying to explain it all to the House of Commons.

While the barrows were being dug up, several stone implements were discovered. Some were still in the Lecture Hall Museum in Greenwich (anyone know where that was?) in 1902, but more were squirrelled away as private property, never to be seen again. It's said that almost the entire skeleton of a man was also found - and AD Webster reckons that there's a drawing of it. Again I have no idea where it would be.

Who were these people? Some say Anglo Saxons; others think they are the bones of the Danes who sailed up the Thames in 1011. There are even those who reckon they are soldiers killed on Blackheath in the Cornish rebellion. Personally I find that a bit far-fetched - I can't imagine Henry VII wanting burials in his palace grounds. Truth is, no one really knows.

Precious little work's been done on these sites as far as I can see. English Heritage, who keep records of these things, list virtually nothing (you know you're onto a loser when the best entries they can list read "1714 - excavation of Greenwich Park - director of 'fieldwork' - Hearne...") though it would seem some general Geo-Fizz was carried out in 1994. I'll see if I can get hold of a copy of the results.

So. There's all to play for here. At some point, these tumuli need more research. Another reason to keep them secure until then...