The Appeal of Mrs Toogood

In January 1567, Louth’s very own James “Smythey” Smyth handed to his offspring land comprising the manors of Hakthorpe, Lesthorpe, Elkington, North Elkington and South Elkington. As well as 30 messuages (apparently a type of dwelling house) and 20 cottages the land included 20 orchards. Twenty whole orchards divvied out by one toff from Louth in the space of a day in one tiny part of Lincolnshire. The land covered a total of about 6000 acres. That’s one orchard per 300 acres. I have no idea how big each orchard was, but whichever way you slice it, that’s a lot of orchards.

These days, and to be fair in them days too, Lincolnshire is a little under 7000 square kilometres, which is 1.7 million acres, a number so large it makes basically zero sense. If orchards were spread roughly evenly at the above rate across Lincolnshire there should be absolutely loads of them (I could do the sums but maths isn’t really my thing, much to the ongoing disappointment of my 8 year old niece). But there aren’t. According to my low quality research, there are three. And one of them is Isaac Newton’s tree at Woolsthorpe Manor which, in my finickity consideration, does not count as an orchard. So, where the hell are they?

They hadn’t disappeared by October 1827. I know that because the allegedly Reverend E Fane sentenced heroic man of the people (probably) Thomas Stevenage of Broughton to one month’s hard labour at Folkingham just for “borrowing” two bags of apples from his mate’s orchard. The git. He was probably just intending to brew some cider for his small children. Who wouldn’t?

Even in 1903, barely over a hundred years ago, the Vicar of Billinghay was writing letters about what he called “the apple tree situation” meaning presumably there were still a few lurking about. Unless the apple tree situation in question was that there weren’t any.

Now, I imagine at this point you’re wondering how I’ve suddenly come upon all this knowledge. It’s a fair question and the main thrust of this week’s shoddy post. On Wednesday last, I got out of work early, bought a family pack of Happy Shopper imitation Frazzles and wandered down to the Lincolnshire Archive. What a place. Three sets of doors to negotiate before you get anywhere close to actual archives. One automatic, one manual and one opened by a mysterious tattooed receptionist. I didn’t make it as far as the archive itself. I barely made it through the automatic door. I think she noticed my obvious buffoonery and rightly surmised she could deal with my enquiries from behind her desk. She was great though. All helpfulness and that politely delivered.

The only slightly dodgy moment was when she naively asked me what I was doing there. I gulped and furrowed my voluminous brow. It’s a tough sell, pretend dead fruit trees.

“Err,” I stammered articulately. “I’m doing a project (internal voice italics: that sounds better than I have an unhealthy obsession. “Doing” gives the impression that this is just a temporary thing, a job almost, rather than basically the only reason I bother getting out of bed on my days off) about Lincolnshire heritage orchards and stuff (there is no “and stuff”, it’s just the orchards. I am mental. Don’t let me through the door.) so I’m looking for old maps and anything helpful really.” (I wonder whether I should tell her about the blog. Yes, yes I think I will. Oh, she’s started talking. It’s probably for the best….)

Even as she frantically reached for the nutcase panic button with her left hand, her right hand passed me an order form and a helpful information sheet describing how to search for and request articles from the historical record. I almost passed out with excitement. That probably happens a lot in these places.

Anyway, I’ve not searched the actual archive or got my grubby hands on any documents yet. I don’t like to rush things. The first few paragraphs of this post were just from the catalogue entries! I know, it’s nuts! What it proves is, firstly, there is a ton of information out there waiting for me to ease my lardy backside into a chair and read and, secondly, I haven’t lost the knack of writing academic assignments without actually reading anything other than a catalogue and a contents page. My youth may just be a distant memory. but I’ve not completely lost my faculties yet.

Over the next few weeks, as my bronzed peers are enjoying the sunshine and playing Ultimate Frisbee outdoors (is that a thing?), I’ll be continuing my research into William Ingall, Thomas Laxton, Mrs Toogood and that tree in the Museum of Lincolnshire Life. We’ll see who gets the most out of the summer months!

In other news, my 50^th birthday trudges ever closer, seemingly as reluctant to meet me as, basically, anyone and anything else. Obviously, you couldn’t care less about my birthday but what is worth sharing is that my sister has offered to buy me the heritage apple tree of my choice from the East of England Apples and Orchards catalogue. Uland? Peasgood Nonsuch? I’m spoilt for choice. Both of those would be good options but I think I quite fancy the Ellison’s Orange. I feel like seeing it in the Museum helped reinvigorate the blog. All I have to do now is navigate the seventeen code numbers delineating what tree I need to breed it with in order for it to produce the actual variety I’m after. In some cases, you need three trees for one of them to produce fruit. They didn’t teach us that in my school Sex Education lessons. Lesson. I had one lesson. It was the ‘70s.

Anyway, it’s a great birthday present. Thanks Fartypants McGrew (her actual name). All those times you basically ruined my childhood? You’re forgiven.