Our Story – Mud, Sweat and Volunteers!

In early 2011 we applied for and were awarded a Community Green Space Challenge grant from Grantscape, with Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council offering us two unused and previously inaccessible fields for rent in the heart of the village.

Work started on the ground in October 2014 and had to be completed in line with the grant terms by December 2014, condensing the proposed 18-month project set-up into three very intense months, in the cold, bleak, muddy winter! Against the elements and with the help of many awesome volunteers, the site was prepared and planted on time, with finishing touches spilling into the new year. We celebrated our opening day in June 2015 and our first Apple Day the following October.

In the intervening years, the orchard has continued to thrive. We have planted over 80 fruit and nut trees of all types and a willow bed and have created wildflower meadows throughout. As well as the orchard trees, we also manage the area for wildlife as it includes a Local Wildlife Site all of which we look after with the help of volunteers. We hold regular events and workshops bringing the community together.

We can’t wait to develop the project more, serving the community and providing an educational focus for all. If you would like to get in touch to chat about the project or come and visit, please contact us.

About Us

Angie, Jane, Karen - Founders and Directors of Northaw Transition CIC

kaz-team

Kaz

Kaz has lived in the parish since childhood and is dedicated to the protection of nature and wild spaces so jumped at the chance to develop a community orchard with others in the village when the opportunity came up. She has been a clinical herbalist for over 20 years and runs a Social Enterprise focused on educating and connecting people with their local medicinal herbs.

For more info about her work see www.seedsistas.co.uk

jane-team

Jane

Jane’s expertise is in horticulture and plant science, which she has taught for over 25 years. She is also passionate about  orchards and conservation. The community orchard has been a fantastic opportunity to combine her two interests and spread the word about plants, wildlife and sustainable living to our community and beyond.

angie-team

Angie

Angie has been involved with the orchard from the start and has been amazed to watch it grow and thrive over the years. It continues to become increasingly sustainable as the fruit, nut trees and new hedges mature and produce food for people and wildlife alike and the wildflowers reseed each year providing food and habitat for insects and more. The orchard is firmly embedded in our community where it is enjoyed and nurtured as a delightful local space.

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Michelle – Financial Director

Sustainable living is very important to Michelle. She enjoys working in the orchard, tending her garden and practising yoga and she plans to do a beekeeping course when she has time. She loves hunting in charity shops… and thinks she watched too much Bagpuss when she was younger!

 

Roger Boddy - Director

I have lived in Northaw for 37 years and together with my late wife Isabel and our daughter Pippa. we have supported the Orchard from its inception. I enjoy sailing, walking, music, travelling and playing drums with various jazz and blues bands. I also support Chickenshed Theatre. As a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, I am honoured to have been elected as a Director of Northaw Transition CIC

all-the-team

What people say…..

‘We are local Northaw residents and we are delighted that the Community Orchard continues to develop and offer interesting and instructive events.    Utilising otherwise neglected land to grow fruit trees offers our local community a very welcome resource which can also give educational opportunities to local schools and other groups.

It is so good to see such healthy, well cared for trees and wild flowers all of which will also benefit the bees, butterflies and other insects that are in decline. We will very happily continue to support this excellent initiative.’

and ….

‘Thanks to the hard work of community volunteers we are witnessing an area of unloved bramble-scrub gradually evolving into something of an oasis on our doorstep. It is becoming a site with a future, literally a project that will bear fruit and provide something for everyone. While we tend to enjoy the tranquility of just sitting in the orchard throughout milder months, we’ve had to smile when that peace is shattered for the best of reasons, the excited voices of inquisitive schoolchildren learning in the ‘outdoor classroom’…even the rain couldn’t dampen their enthusiasm.’

CultureWood Family Forest School

We are pleased to host CultureWood Forest School for children aged 3 – 11yrs with their parents and guardians. Check dates on our Events page.  Contact Tanya at culturewood@gmail.com to book

tanya-team
our-beekeper

Natural Beekeeping in Top Bar Hives

We have funded Dieter, our local beekeeper to attend an intermediate training course in Natural Beekeeping, with Phil Chandler in Devon. Dieter has built us a Top Bar hive to house bees at the Orchard. If you would like to learn about or visit our hives please contact us. Children welcome.

For more information on Natural Bee keeping visit; http://www.naturalbeekeepingtrust.org/

Our Orchard Mermaid

When we first came together all those years ago, we decided to have a willow nursery in a wet corner of the smaller field which was unsuitable for other trees but perfect for willow. We planted 10 different types of willow as cuttings, with the future thought to create weaving opportunities and more.  Six years ago, we harvested our very first batch of willow whips with expert help and assistance from Mel of the Herts Basketry Group. Mel came on multiple occasions to give us advice and guidance and also donated plenty of her own whips towards our willow sculpture.

A fabulous local artist, Caroline Young, came on board as the creative director of our willow mermaid sculpture. We all walked the site together and found a suitable corner of Ash Field to home her and then set to work on this brave new experiment. 

A Mermaid seemed like a wonderful idea, inviting the energy of the sea and the beautiful mythical creature with her rich magic to the land. We joked about her needing some water to dip in.

In that first year of creation we had enough willow to make a dome (known as the Mermaid’s womb) and her tail and in the second and third years. We reinforced the dome and tail with more willow, creating heart shaped and circular window spaces. Living sculptures are incredible. We watch the movement and change as the trees grow into one another and up towards the skies. Her dome womb space needs a haircut quite regularly!

In 2019 the land close to the Mermaid began to get really boggy. We noticed that the quince and medlar tress which are planted there were really lush and productive and there were wet feet aplenty in that area. Then last year in the drought, a fissure opened up in the earth but it was full of water. We investigated and found that a spring had bubbled up just near the mermaid’s tail!

This year we began her face and started to think about her upper body. Six women met with car loads of rubble, some wires, open hearts and plenty of good will They toiled unloading and building a mould where her face will one day appear. We hand dug into the spring and the mud and clay that we removed went to start creation of her face. The Mermaid has been an extremely organic creation, all trial and error and absolutely no pressure on anyone to have the sculpture ready for a specific date. It is truly a work in progress’!

Here are some words from Caroline 

‘I was invited to collaborate on an exciting project to make a willow sculpture in Northaw Orchard.  I found it deeply inspiring that Kaz has the gusto to open long term community projects and it was just the sort of area I felt I could flourish.  I am not sure how the idea of a pregnant mermaid evolved but I expect it was over a visionary cup of tea, excitement, expectancy and wonder that lifted our hearts as we realised we could make it happen.Ever the enabler, Kaz handed me a book on creating willow structures and put her trust in me to creatively direct this project and wow I have learned so much! 

We started by harvesting the willow from Willow Field as a team (this whole project has been able to happen because of kind people that want to get involved) then taking it over to the Ash Field and working out which types of willow we would use for which parts of the Mermaid. 

One lesson I could have done with learning before we started was to make a plan and don’t just go for it…. but I usually have strong urges to dive into projects with strong enthusiasm and this is what we did.

We set about marking out the circle to make the shape for the willow dome that would become the Mermaid’s pregnant belly.  Using the big and strong type of willow whips, we pushed them deep into the soft soil around the circle about 6 inches apart leaving a gap for the entrance.  Then we created a big sweeping tail shape to follow on from the body.  Then over the next few hours we used up all of our willow stock (and some gifted willow I believe) filling in all the gaps.  It is interesting to use this medium, on the dome we have willow going in all directions, this ways and that, woven together to make a solid structure.  We have also created a heart window inside the dome that could be the baby’s heart. 

We plunged the willow into the ground at angles that crossed over each other for her tail, creating a tail movement and suggesting scaly patterns.

So what did I miss?  Everything was going so well!

We didn’t put down any ground protector under the tail… and the grass pushed its way through the structure!! Disaster!  I felt terrible…. Thankfully, Team Orchard were able to save the tail by painstakingly adding the protector afterwards.

Over the next few years, I broke my wrist… life happened.  We annually harvested the willow and added and replaced whips in the structure, maintaining it… but it was still only a belly and tail…. We were wondering if we should rename it The Tadpole!

When I came across the artist that makes living sculptures for The Eden project I realised that this is how we should proceed with our Mermaid.  So, we saved our rubble and gathered a dream team of creative women and set about sculpting our Mermaid’s head.  We piled the rubble up and encased it in chicken wire.  Then half the team dug beautiful clay/silt mud from the spring area and the other half packed it into the rubble.  We found inquisitive frogs in the spring and excitable freshwater shrimps swimming cartwheels. 

The next part will be to join the head to the belly with angled willow.  We will make the suggestion of breasts with swirls of willow.Then we will use some kind of cement like material to sculpt her face’

Wild Artist, Caroline Young

www.tropicalbird.co.uk

Many thanks to Caroline

Northaw Transition CIC

We started our community project in 2010 under an umbrella group called the Transition Network. The Network is formed of Transition Towns which embrace local environmental initiatives to help communities cut their carbon emissions and relocalize their resources. The focus is on eating and producing more local food, reducing energy and waste and recycling more together with educating people as to why these issues are important. This is a common sense response to the problems we face in an oil dependent economy and global warming. See https://transitionnetwork.org/

In 2014, to take on the orchard project, we had to formalise our status from an informal community group to a Community Interest Company, Northaw Transition CIC.  CICs are not-for-profit companies with a social interest agenda.

Mermaid Photo

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