Orchard Profiles – London

With funding from the Heritage Lottery, we restored 30 hidden orchards around London between 2016 and 2019. We also celebrated their history, biodiversity and produce together with the local communities who maintain the sites. Here is a profile of each orchard.

Cranford Park

A formal orchard with 49 different varieties of apple and pear. In a large country park in Hillingdon, west London.

Chattern Hill Orchard

A hidden gem of an orchard in the heart of a nature reserve. There are a number of local varieties of apple here including the rare Hounslow Wonder.

Blondin Park

A park and nature area in West London with a traditionally laid out community orchard and a nature walk with olive, apricot, peach, almond, quince and medlar trees.

Alexandra Palace Allotments

A large allotment site in north London. Many of the plots have fruit trees including several veteran apples and a large espalier pear.

Pevensey Road Nature Reserve

A local nature reserve with more than twenty veteran apple and pear trees dotted around the site. Recent plantings have created a new area of orchard including the rare Hounslow Wonder.

Wildcat Wilderness

A 6.5 acre former allotment site that became neglected and overgrown but is now being restored by volunteers and used for community events, forest schools and bushcraft. It has several veteran apple and pear trees.

Roding Valley

Roding Valley Nature Reserve was planted as woodland in the 1980s. The mix of trees includes dozens of seedling apple, pear and cherry plum trees, along with oak, hawthorn and willow. Although not planted as an ‘orchard’, many of the trees produce delicious fruit.

Scadbury Park

A mainly linear orchard of 20 apple and pear trees; they are the relict of extensive commercial orchards that were grubbed up in the early 1970’s. The fields are now part of Scadbury Park.

La Retraite

An old orchard of pear and apple trees on the grounds of La Retraite Roman Catholic Girls’ School, formerly a convent.

Oak Hill College

Here you will find two veteran orchards on the grounds of a theological college that used to be part of large estate incorporating nearby park and ancient woodland.

Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital

Two veteran apple and pear orchards on the grounds of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore.

Waltham Abbey Orchard

This orchard lies within the grounds of the historic Abbey Church of Waltham Cross, built by the Normans in the early 12th Century, and reputed to be where King Harold is buried. It is open to the public and popular with dog walkers.

Horton Country Park

Two veteran apple and pear orchards in Horton country park, with some unusual varieties and rare biodiversity value.

Forest Lane Park

At Forest Lane Park orchard there are two rows of pear and apple trees in the children’s play area of an east London park. 

Olden Gardens Orchard

Olden Gardens has a beautiful orchard of apples, pears, plum, quince and apricot trees on a railway embankment, part of a 2-acre community garden.

Horsenden Hill

Horsenden Hill is the largest conservation site in Ealing and home to around 50 fruit trees in their orchard, including plums, cherries, apples, and espalier pears and apples.

Brockwell Park Community Greenhouses

Most trees at BPCG were planted in 2000 as part of a forest gardening project. There are around 30 trees including apples, pears, walnut, quinces, apricots, mulberries, plums, medlars, and greengages.

Froebel’s Orchard

Set in the grounds of Roehampton University, Froebel’s Orchard is the remnants of an orchard planted in the 1920s when Froebel’s College first became a teacher training college.

Dawsons Hill Orchard

Dawson’s Hill was the site of an Iron-Age burial mound and a Roman Fort.

High Elms & Clockhouse Orchards

There are two orchards in High Elms Country Park which we supported as part of the Celebration of Orchard project.

Downe Community Orchard

Planted in 1992, Downe Community Orchard has 76 full standard old Kentish variety apples.

Mill Hill Orchard

This is a large orchard of around 150 trees that were originally managed like a commercial orchard – probably unique in London!

Chalkhill orchard / St David’s Open Space

Chalkhill orchard is on public open space in front of Chalkhill state in Wembley Park. It dates from the 1960’s and includes veteran apples, pears, plums and a walnut tree.

Lady Gilbert Orchard

The orchard was once part of the gardens of Grim’s Dyke House, the former home W. S. Gilbert and his wife Lady Gilbert, and was planted between 1900 and 1930. The orchard is a collection of 27 large, mature fruit trees, mainly apples.

Chinbrook Community Orchard

Chinbrrok Meadows Allotments, west of Grove Park cemetery Lewisham is the loving home of Chinbrook Community Orchard where there is also a thriving nature reserve.

Dick Turpin Orchard

The orchard won the Community Tree Award at the 2017 London Tree and Woodland Awards. The Orchard is located on the grounds of the Dick Turpin Pub now run by Miller and Carter Steakhouse Newbury Park, Ilford and is open to the public.

Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Orchard

Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park is a public park in Kennington, south London. The orchard was planted there by local schoolchildren in 2003 with trees native to their home countries.

Hainault Lodge

The orchard is over 80 years old and includes 11 pears, 8 apples, mulberry, some plums. All the trees are full standard. There are 3 younger pears and a quince planted in 2016.

Padnall Lake Orchard

The orchard is the last remnant of the orchards of Padnall Hall estate, which in 1901 was a farm.

Petersham Meadows Orchard

Petersham Meadows were a part of the estate attached to Ham House from the early 17th Century until the latter years of the 19th Century. There are 14 trees of which 11 are apples and 3 pears.