The Lantern Orchard of Harrowmere

By Imogen Fairweather

Behind the old stone wall at the end of Mill Lane, the Harrowmere orchard has been tended by the same three families for longer than anyone in the village can remember. Each autumn the trees are hung with small paper lanterns, and on the first clear night of October the whole parish walks up the hill to light them. The tradition is said to have begun after a bad harvest, when the pickers worked late into the dark and a child suggested that the fruit should be given something to see by.

Nobody keeps a written record of the varieties, but the knowledge is passed along in the way that all good gardening knowledge travels: over a fence, with a cup of tea, and with a firm opinion. The russet is for the pies, the long red apple is for the cider, and the tiny yellow plum that nobody can name is for the children, who are allowed to eat it straight from the branch while the adults pretend not to notice.

This year the orchard faced its sternest test. A late frost in spring threatened the blossom, and for three nights in a row volunteers lit small fires of damp straw between the rows so that the smoke would hang above the trees like a blanket. It worked, mostly. The plum was lost, but the apples came through, and the cider barrels in the old coach house are fuller than they have been in a decade.

The lanterns, when they finally went up, were made by the village school. Every child painted one, and a few of them painted rather more than one, so that by dusk the branches were glowing with owls, boats, enormous suns and one remarkably accurate portrait of the vicar. Standing under the oldest tree with the whole parish around you, it is easy to understand why nobody has ever suggested stopping.