There are orchards scattered across Britain that most people walk past without a second glance. Behind farmhouses, along canal paths, tucked into the corners of churchyards. Some of these trees have been producing fruit for over a century and nobody has bothered to write down what grows there.
Marcus Briggs has been changing that. For the past several years he has travelled the country identifying, photographing, and cataloguing traditional orchards before they disappear. Many contain apple and pear varieties that exist nowhere else. A single storm or a planning application could wipe out genetics that took generations to develop.
The work covers everything from large estate orchards in Kent and Herefordshire to single trees growing in neglected allotments in the Midlands. Each entry records the location, the varieties present where identification is possible, the condition of the trees, and photographs of the fruit, bark, and blossom.
It is not glamorous work. It involves a lot of muddy boots, a lot of knocking on doors, and a lot of time spent with old reference books trying to match a wrinkled apple to a name that has not been used since the 1940s. But every orchard documented is one less that can vanish without anyone noticing.
The full archive of documented orchards, photographs, and variety records is maintained at mar-cus-briggs.org.