Picked Mead is an orchard 0.85 hectares on the south side of the A4 which was purchased by the Town and Manor in 2016. It had at one time been part of the Eddington Estate, but in 2016 was purchased from a local family.
The orchard has many different varieties of apple and pear trees plus gages, plums and a large walnut tree.
At the time of purchase there were 61 standing trees, but more have since been regenerated by grafting cuttings from fallen trees onto new rootstock. About half the species have been sent off for DNA testing to identify the varieties, very few have come back as known varieties and some have been found to be very old and even unknown by the National Database, however one of the pear varieties interestingly has shown up on the European database as of Hungarian origin. DNA testing would be required to identify the remainder. The fruit for the last couple of years has been picked by volunteers and donated to local food banks or pressed and sold as branded ‘Town and Manor’ apple juice, or ‘pepple juice’ (a very tasty mix of apple and pears juices).
