Nationally many apple and other orchards have vanished; abandoned or grubbed up because there’s no longer any money in them.
There’s a mournful chapter on the country’s last orchards in Paul Kingsnorth’s Real England.
Yet, here in London one group of people have set out to plant a series of new orchards, filling South London with saplings of hope.
Over a wall is a river foreshore busy with gulls and expectant cormorants – right in the heart of London.
How a once-derelict patch of ground, is helping to galvanise a community in one corner of South London.
Squashed gothic churches, beheaded saints, mysterious alleyways and a preponderance of dustbins.
It doesn’t take much to make a familiar place unfamiliar. A change in the weather – rain, bright sunshine, or more dramatically, snowfall or fog can all do it. Smells too – who hasn’t found themselves aware of sniffing more consciously than normal when drains are blocked, or there’s a whiff of barbecue, bonfire or worse in the air?
And then of course there are a place’s distinctive sounds.
Is it acceptable to call replica Sphinxes ‘The Guys?’ Who is The Headless Lady with no arms? What happens when you stop paying attention near the maze?
To find out, join our child-led expedition into Crystal Palace Park.
I recently went in search for an ‘anonymous suburb’.
This is what I discovered.
