The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Reading list Orchards
THE LOST ORCHARD BY RAYMOND BLANC (Headline Home, £20)
From 2012 onwards, the famous restaurateur began planting apple trees on a plot of land behind his hotel-restaurant at Great Milton in Oxfordshire. He currently has around 2500 trees and 150 types of apple generating some 30 tonnes annually. Among them are rare varieties such as Lord Lambourne, Chivers Delight and D’Arcy Spice (the last two are both great for baking, apparently) alongside more familiar names such as Cox’s Orange Pippin and Granny Smith. To that bounty Blanc has added 600 trees from his home turf of Franche-Comte in eastern France. In The Lost Orchard, he tells the story of a project whose aim is to celebrate and preserve the multiplicity of British apple varieties.
THE APPLE TREE BY DAPHNE DU MAURIER
(from The Birds And Other Stories, Virago Modern Classics, £8.99)
Daphne Du Maurier’s dark short story centres on a retired stockbroker whose wife, Midge, has died suddenly from pneumonia. He becomes obsessed that one of the trees in his orchard – “the third one on the left, a little apart from the rest” – resembles Midge in its pose of “martyred resignation”, its the branches like a “drooping head poked forward in an attitude of weariness”. As he replays his life with Midge the reader is given a glimpse of the loathing he felt for his long-suffering spouse, and the tree which resembles her comes to haunt him as it first blossoms and then bears a crop of rotten apples. A typically menacing tale from Du Maurier, it was published in the same 1952 collection which contained The Birds.
THE EXCELLENT LOMBARDS BY JANE HAMILTON
(Grand Central Publishing, £14.99)
Inspired by life on a Wisconsin orchard, American author Jane Hamilton penned this 2016 novel about, well, life on an orchard. A coming-of-age story centred on Mary Lombard, known as Frankie, it follows her from her early teenage years into young adulthood, and is set against the background of the apple orchard she lives on with her family, her father’s cousin and business partner and Frankie’s cousin, friend and sometime rival Amanda. “The orchard seems to transcend setting to become another character in the novel,” wrote The New York Journal Of Books.
continues across the main road to visit Pitlochry’s dam and fish ladder, built here to assist salmon trying to get upriver to spawn.
The riverside walk passes below the Pitlochry Festival Theatre which has an extensive Explorers’ Garden before crossing the turbulent River Tummel on a suspension bridge at Port na Craig which can sway alarmingly if there are many people on it. Don’t worry, it’s quite safe!
The bridge holds a large collection of padlocks left here by couples as a mark of their undying love.
I am sure after enjoying this walk you will want to return.
ROGER SMITH
ROUTE PLANNER
Map: OS 1:50,000 Landranger sheet 52 (Pitlochry & Crieff) or Pitlochry Walks Network leaflet available at the TIC.
Distance: 5 miles/8km
Approx Time: 2-3 hours
Start/Finish: Pitlochry Tourist Information Centre (GR: NN942581)
Transport: Regular bus and train services to Pitlochry from Glasgow and Edinburgh (www. travelinescotland.com)
Route: From the TIC walk east on main road. Just before railway bridge TL, taking the R fork (Knockfarrie Road). Follow it past rear of Atholl Palace Hotel and continue on Lovers’ Lane path. When this ends (footbridge on right), TL on path signed ‘Moulin via Caisteal Dubh’. Follow path to another junction then follow field edge. Divert to look at Caisteal Dubh, return to field edge and at fence corner head across field aiming just left of church to reach a metal gate with an information board.
Walk out to main road, TR and pass Moulin Inn. Take next L (Baledmund Road). Follow road past new houses and uphill. Turn sharp L and walk down past golf course and The Cuilc. Keep L on road then turn L and R down Larchwood Rd. Cross main road and follow signs down Rie-achan Rd and Armoury Rd to dam. Cross dam and TL down steps to road. Walk along by river and look for gap on L leading to suspension bridge across R.Tummel. Walk up to Ferry Rd and follow it up to town centre.