On a very windy and rainy evening, members of the orchard braved the weather to celebrate the Winter Solstice. Some well placed windbreaks made the forest garden a ‘cosy’ setting for our get together. Many thanks to Jim, Noel, Linda and Simon for providing the music. We shared poems, mulled cider and good food. We lasted about an hour before the weather drove us home but it was a very good evening.
On Thursday 5th December, we attended the County Durham Together Awards on behalf of the Orchard Group. We were nominated in the Environment category by person unknown and believe it or not we won!! It was a great evening recognising the contribution of some very inspiring and humble people working in the voluntary and care sectors.
It also reflects what all of the Orchard members have achieved in the orchard over the last 14 years from the early vision and establishment, the stewardship of Lanchester Partnership and the enormous amount of hard graft that makes the orchard a success. Everyone’s efforts during our regular work sessions which maintain the orchard have allowed us to achieve so much environmentally and socially and have made the orchard a lovely place in which to meet and just be in. A huge thank to all Orchard members for all your hard work and friendship and to everyone who has supported the Orchard over the years- it’s humbling to be recognised in this way and thank you to our nominator.
Lanchester Community Orchard has been shortlisted as a finalist in the 2024 County Durham Together Awards in the Environment Category. This is a wonderful recognition of Paul, Sonny and Steve’s original vision, our achievements over the last 12/13 years, all our members hard work and the support of Lanchester Partnership.
The awards ceremony is set to take place at Hardwick Hall Hotel on Thursday 5th December 2024.
Orchard members and their families joined in with our apple harvest. The apples, all heritage varieties, were picked, sorted and shared and juiced. We were lucky to have another sunny day although a bit chilly. All members receive a box of apples and we also share the apples with our local organisations and community.
The only question remains… what to cook with all of our delicious apples.
On a sunny Autumn day there is no better place to be than the community Orchard. We hope you enjoy some of these Autumn photos taken by one our orchard members, Lynn.
Everyone is welcome to visit the Orchard and wander round enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of an Autumn day!
During our recent fundraising event we were able to twin with four communities around the world, supporting the building of a toilet and hygiene education. We asked everyone who joined us on the day to choose which countries to twin our toilet with and we picked the following: Nepal, Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.
Our certificates will be proudly displayed in our compost toilet. Why not pay a visit!
What an amazing day we had on Saturday! We started our sponsored walk around the Orchard in the fog and ended the day in sunshine. An enormous thank you to everyone who joined in on the day walking laps of the orchard or donated and supported us online.
We achieved our total of 84 laps, 28 km in total and we raised £265.00 to twin our compost toilet with 4 families and communities who will benefit from clean sanitation. We will update which countries we twinned with when this has been organised.
You are all amazing!
Toilet Twinning is helping to transform lives in some of the poorest places on the planet. Vulnerable households will: learn about the importance of sanitation and hygiene; build their own loo; gain access to clean water; enjoy better health – and take a massive step out of generational poverty.
We are holding a sponsored walk around the Orchard to raise funds to twin our compost toilet. We are planning to walk 84 circuits of the orchard.
£60 lets us twin with one toilet, if we raise more than this it will be brilliant because we can twin with more toilets!
There was a great turnout of members and their families to see how many different species of moth we had caught in the moth traps in the Orchard. Here are just a few of them, and a list of the moths we found. It highlights the great diversity of wildlife in the orchard! Many thanks to Terry and Viv for organising this.
We recently has some ariel photos taken of the Orchard and Margery Flatts Allotments. These amazing photos, taken using a drone by Barrie McDermid, they show the scale and layout of the Orchard and allotments. It’s hard to believe but just a few years ago this was just a grassy field.
Lanchester Community Orchard 