Just to the south of where I live is a landscape that has terroir: multiple distinct landscapes producing vegetables, cider and beer. It’s a great place to source artisan food. This is a continuation of a journey around the English west midlands where I live. I started in the hills in the north, moved round to flatter ground (north of Birmingham) and through what I call ‘breadbasket country’ to the south.
Now we carry on further south and west….
Read a preview of Chapter 5 (Terroir: Vegetables, Cider and Beer) in my book, out now. See Eat Like Your Ancestors (From the Ground Beneath Your Feet): A Sustainable Food Journey Around the English West Midlands.
We swing slightly south-west now into a market gardening area that came into being in the early 18th century. It fed towns and cities like Worcester and Birmingham on its doorstep. Here, in the Vale of Evesham, we walk mostly on fertile soils.
I’ve wondered why this area became such an important market gardening area. I thought it was because the soils are generally fertile, but it seems that not all of the success of this area was down to fertile soils. It was partly that this became an area of smallholdings – small market garden farms rather than large arable farms.
Smallholdings and orchards were everywhere until fairly recently, rising to a peak around the time of the second world war.
My Dad (with my aunt) was evacuated from Wimbledon in London to a village near Evesham at this time. He was very young and all he remembers about that time was that they stayed with a family that lived on a smallholding. Somewhere, we have a photo of my dad and aunt as small children sitting on the orchard wall.
I thought I could work out where they were by looking on old maps for a parcel of land of the size of a smallholding with an orchard. The trouble is that much of the village was like that. I don’t rate my chances of pin-pointing where they were.
Flowers, Vegetables and Orchards
For instance, if you were in the village of Badsey, near Evesham, around 1911, you would have found the whole village thriving with smallholder industry. The Badsey Society found that over 80% of householders registered themselves as market gardeners in the 1911 census. You can find out more in The Last Market Gardener Project.
They grew flowers as well as vegetables for market amongst the orchard trees, keeping the soils fertile with manure from sheep and cattle. It was a landscape that supported diverse wildlife, but after WWII it saw many changes. Hear mother owl’s story to find out what has happened to wildlife and the soil. And, how you can help to support a return to more nature-friendly farming amongst the apple trees.
If you live in this area, a project up and running at the time of writing is the Market Gardening Heritage project which aims to survey and restore small market garden buildings called hovels, and to record local memories which will be included in a Reminiscence Pack.
Experience autumn in the orchards. Walk through this land of smallholdings and carry on west into the hopyards.
If I’ve interested you in artisan food, you may like to know about my book about sustainable food. It’s centered on a journey around where I live, but it’s relevant anywhere. And, it’s out now…
