Lost Fruit Trees of Stalybridge!

The Lost Trees Project

This project aims to explore, map and share information about fruit trees in Stalybridge in Tameside. It’s part of a programme of community activities celebrating Stalybridge as Greater Manchester’s Town of Culture in 2022, by building awareness and deepening connections to different aspects of the town and its history.

Listen to the podcast and subscribe here: https://anchor.fm/operation-farm

Mapping Stalybridge’s Fruit Trees

We want people in Stalybridge to know and love their local fruit trees! So we’ve created an online map of the Stalybridge area for residents of the area to add fruit trees in and around the town that they know about.

Read more about mapping the Lost Trees here or go straight to the map here

We also launched a physical map at Stalybridge Streetfest in July 2022 which is on display on the ground floor of Stalybridge Market Hall in the town centre, and tree locations can be added with a sticker and any extra details written on a form.

As well as raising awareness locally about their locations, mapping the trees may also help to identify any fruit trees which regularly go unharvested, but whose fruit could be collected and juiced by the Abundance Tameside Project.

The Lost Trees Walk

Operation Farm curated a group walk to visit a selection of Stalybridge’s fruit trees to coincide with the town’s Streetfest activities in September 2022. Unfortunately this was postponed along with all the event activities with the the passing of Queen Elizabeth, and sadly it had to be called off again later in the month due to stormy weather conditions. With short days and colder weather looming, it wasn’t possible to rearrange again but we adapted our podcast to document the walk in audio form, so that the walk route and experience could be shared more widely.

View the walk route map here

The Lost Trees Podcast

The Lost Trees Podcast, which was originally intended to be a series of interviews about local fruit trees, was turned into an audio version of the walk, recording the sounds of the places we move through, along with interviews from people who have harvested, cared for, planted or studied the trees that we encounter and who know about the places where they grow. We’ve uncovered lots of facts and history but a few mysteries remain!

Listen to the podcast trailer on You Tube here

Listen to all three episodes, read more information and view pictures of trees on the walk here