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Bide-a-While orchard

Planted in 1938 by local engineer George Farr, this orchard sits just off New Bedford Road in a formal garden. A popular photo spot during blossom time in spring, it features 22 trees including 'grown-out' espaliers, and standard trees of apples and pears.

Summary

Area: Barnfield
Size: 0.39ha
Number of trees: 22
Crops: apple, pear
Age of trees: veteran
Access: any time, council-owned
Natural England incremental ID: BEDF0431

Watch a short film about Bide-a-While

History

This orchard was planted by George Farr, an engineer in Luton. Initially, we were told this was around 1938, but new information suggests it could have been in 1935. It was part of the Bide-a-While garden on his allotment plots. The information board at the garden explains that '...between 1945 and 1951, the garden was maintained by local pensioners and it was probably during that time that the name of Bide-a-While was adopted, because visitors expressed a wish to bide a while in the garden.' The garden was given to Luton Council in 1951.

Photograph showing George Farr in his Bide-a-While garden and a quote by former Luton resident Sheila, remembering visits to the orchard in the 1950s. Newspaper cutting from Geoffrey Farr's private collection, used with his kind permission.

This photograph of a printout of the Luton News and Dunstable Gazette, possibly from May 1936, shows George Farr between the row of young espalier fruit trees.

You can just about make out the framework that would have supported the trained trees. Note the beautifully kept borders and topiary birds, and the absence of houses in the background, where the properties on Manton Drive now sit.

The quote is from a former Luton resident, who remembers visiting the garden with her father in the 1950s.

A letter recalling vandalism at Bide-a-While from the 1950s to the 1980s

Letter about Bide-a-While in the Luton News and Bedfordshire Chronicle, August 7, 1986, Image © National World Publishing Ltd. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

Read the letter - Garden of Eden revisited

YOU must sometimes wonder why elderly Luton residents bombard you with old faded photographs of events of long ago, and why they write nostalgically of the times when it was possible to walk from Stockingstone Road into town without being in danger of crashing into a cyclist doing ‘‘wheelies’’.

I haven’t any daguerrotypes, but in my mind’s eye I carry a picture of Bide-A-While, once a haven of beauty and rest just off the New Bedford Road.

This plot was once owned by Mr George Farr, the managing director of an engineering business in Collingdon Street.

Gardening was his hobby and this area in the 1950s and probably long before the war would be of such merit, if it still existed as it was at the height of its popularity, as to attract television gardening programmes.

It had many features including heated greenhouses, cold frames, fish ponds, paved walks, fruit trees, statuary, flower beds, shrubberies, ornamental trees and a few vegetables. It stretched right down to the tiddler-full River Lea. Entry was free although a charity box was strategically placed at the exit / entrance.

When Mr Farr died in 1952 he left this haven of peace and tranquillity to the people of Luton who promptly threw brickbats through the greenhouse glass, stole or killed the goldfish and fill the pond with stones and generally vandalised it into a monstrosity garden.

A few years ago on the construction of the Swan Walk this garden was to a certain extent refurbished by the Parks Department. Now go and take a look at it: paved walks broken up and the slabs used as ammunition by warring factions, flower beds used as paths and scarlet zonal pelargoniums uprooted and carted off to some front garden or other, not a tiny green apple left on the avenue of fruit trees and Coca-cola tins everywhere.

Of course the greenhouses, fish pond and statues have never been replaced, or they would have been destroyed. Even though Bide-A-While has little of its former charm left some of the trees are popular as a background for wedding photographs. Perhaps in 50 years time the Luton News will receive some of these photographs to show that Kipling was wrong. He wrote: “And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away.” He took little account of vandals. Bide-A-While is being hacked to death again.

PETER C. VIGOR
7 Westbury Gardens
Luton

[Luton News and Bedfordshire Chronicle, August 7, 1986]

Surveying the orchard in 2008 and re-discovering its value

Espalier trees photographed at a site visit in 2008 with the local ecologist and orchard professionals. Photograph: Bob Lever

You can see that the trees had been hard-pruned and then the pruning regime was abandoned. Predictably, a large amount of over-vigorous growth resulted. Photograph: Bob Lever

The young branches against the sky backdrop show that trees had been hard pollarded or pruned back to knuckles. Photograph: Bob Lever

Note the well-cleared squares of bare soil around the trees. These are no longer there - could they be reinstated? Photograph: Bob Lever

Crop types and cultivars at the Bide-a-While orchard

We know this orchard has apple trees and two pear trees amongst the espaliers. Geoffrey Farr, grandson of George Farr, remembers Newton Wonder being planted here.

Luton Council's Senior Ecologist, Trevor Tween, Martin Skipper from the East of England Apples and Orchards Project, and now-retired orchard skills tutor Bob Lever noted a Warner's King on a site visit in 2008. A King Edward VII is another believed to be on the site. However, it has not been possible to assign any varieties in this orchard yet. Tree tagging begun in 2024 will make it easier to do this in the future.

Apples

Tag Planting date Type Cultivar

6701 1938 approx Apple TBC

6702 1938 approx Apple TBC

6703 1938 approx Apple TBC

6704 1938 approx Apple TBC

6705 1938 approx Apple TBC

6706 1938 approx Apple TBC

6707 1938 approx Apple TBC

6708 1938 approx Apple TBC

6709 1938 approx Apple TBC

6710 1938 approx Apple TBC

6711 1938 approx Apple TBC

6712 1938 approx Apple TBC

6713 1938 approx Apple TBC

6715 1938 approx Apple TBC

6717 1938 approx Apple TBC

6734 1938 approx Apple TBC

Pears

6714 1938 approx Pear TBC

6716 1938 approx Pear TBC

A visit from the Bedfordshire and Luton Orchards Group (BLOG) in summer 2024. From left: Sam Mostyn-Willis, Sal Wileman, Colin Hall and Colin Carpenter.

Winter pruning workshop with local people and volunteers from the nearby Penrose Roots garden, who warmed us up with hot drinks and let us use their fabulous composting loo.

Maintenance and pruning

Espalier trees are ones that have been trained and restricted. However, the espaliers at Bide-a-While have lost their shape over the decades and it would be hard to get them to regain their form. After discussion between orchardists in 2023-24, it was agreed there was no benefit in trying to re-train the espaliers. Instead, the focus for the management should be on prolonging the life of the trees by helping them balance their weight.

Luton Orchards held a winter pruning workshop with Sal Wileman in 2023. Grown-out espalier trees had some light conservation work done on them, carefully removing the tallest branches to avoid branches breaking under the weight of the next crop. The small group of standard trees was also pruned at that time.

Further work is needed, as pruning should be kept up year-on-year. Could you help fund pruning courses or work here?

Further research and work for the Bide-a-While orchard

tag the fruit trees along the perimeter
research the fruit cultivars
signage explaining when to harvest the fruit (and when not to!)
trees are suffering from vandalism and 'rough picking' the late-ripening fruit before it's ripe - could signage help?

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