St James Village Orchard
At the western edge of our village is a triangular field of about an acre, bounded on two sides by Metfield Road and Common Road, and known as the Greshaw Green Enclosure. Over the past 15 years The St James Village Orchard Project has transformed the Enclosure into a flourishing community orchard.
The Orchard Team welcomes you to the Village Orchard pages of the St James website. We use these to share our experience in creating the Orchard, provide information about what can be found there, and to share with others who have similar ambitions some of the material that we needed or produced along the way.
Here you will find, among other things:
- The Orchard and its site, how it began and developed
- An Interactive Map that will give you details of all the trees planted and where they can be found
- Catalogue of tree types and varieties
- The Orchard as part of our village, activities and events
- Photo Gallery
- Our supporters
We acknowledge all the help the project had and continues to have from the people of St James South Elmham and from our suppliers, sponsors, supporters, visitors (individuals and organisations) and, importantly our volunteer team. Without their enthusiastic encouragement, assistance and financial help the Orchard could never have been built or maintained. More information about some of these supporters and links to their websites can be found on our Thank You page
Throughout these pages, as well as photos of the orchard, you may notice paintings and words by Tessa Newcomb reproduced with her kind permission from her recent book “Where I Belong”. This is about her relationship with this part of Suffolk where she spent many of her early years. She includes a whole chapter on St James Village Orchard which she often visits and which she has described and illustrated with her paintings. If you would like to know more about Tessa and her work please click here.