From Spades to Saplings: the “Great Canal Orchard” Six Months On

There’s something quietly satisfying about returning to a piece of ground you’ve worked with your own hands. The soil looks different. The light catches it differently. And if the preparation was thorough and the planting done with care, you might just find something small and green pushing upward where there was once only compacted earth and tangled roots.

That’s exactly what our team found when we paid a return visit to the site near Dunstall Park along the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal this spring.

Six months ago, a group of Andrews Sykes volunteers from our Walsall depot swapped their office wear for high-vis jackets and spades, becoming the very first group to break ground on the “Great Canal Orchard” – a ten-year community project run by the Canal & River Trust. The mission then was to clear decades of overgrowth and prepare the ground for fruit tree planting along a fifty-mile corridor stretching from Wolverhampton to Worcester, as well as uncover buried historic infrastructure.

The question in May 2026 was simple: how are those young trees getting on?

The answer is encouraging.

Promising Signs After the First Winter

Returning to a freshly planted site in its first spring is always a tense moment. Young fruit trees are vulnerable in their early months – frost, waterlogging, and competition from regrowth can all set back even the most carefully planted sapling. What the visit to Dunstall Park revealed, however, was a picture of healthy establishment. The trees are leafing up well, stems are strengthening, and some are showing the first tentative signs of blossom. For trees in their very first spring, this is exactly what you want to see.

The Andrews Sykes volunteers were one part of a wider community effort. Since November 2025, other groups, local organisations, Canal & River Trust teams, and community volunteers have continued planting further along the canal route. Together, we are laying the foundations of an orchard that will take years to fully mature, but is already visibly taking shape.

What Our Volunteers Did and What We Found

Our team was the first group on site at Lock 21, Aldersley Canal Junction, in November 2025. The task was to clear soil and heavy vegetation. We also needed to identify the brickwork boundaries beneath and prepare the ground for planting. Care was taken not to disturb anything of historical significance below the surface.

What we uncovered was unexpected: original industrial-era paving, perfectly preserved under the soil. It was a tangible link to the junction’s origins, dating back to 1772. Rather than being removed, the stonework is now being restored and repurposed. It will form long-term access paths through the orchard, blending conservation with community use.

You can read the full story of that day, including photographs of the team at work, here.

Why the Great Canal Orchard Matters

The project draws on a tradition dating back to the Industrial Revolution, when boating families planted fruit trees along canal banks to sustain themselves during long journeys. The Canal & River Trust’s vision is to revive that spirit along fifty miles of canal. The route runs from Wolverhampton to Worcester, creating a free community orchard open to all. Once established, the trees will provide fresh food for towpath users, vital habitat for wildlife, and crucial support for pollinators.

It is a project that thinks in decades. That kind of long-term ambition needs organisations willing to commit beyond a single volunteer day, and that’s exactly what Andrews Sykes intends to do.

To learn more about the Great Canal Orchard, visit the Canal & River Trust website.

Get Involved in 2026

The orchard needs ongoing care as it grows, and the project continues to expand southward towards Worcester. For 2026, we’re looking for volunteers in two areas:

Maintenance near Dunstall Park – weeding, mulching, checking stakes and guards on the established saplings, and clearing any regrowth competing with the young trees.

New planting further along the canal – as new sites are prepared towards Worcester, there will be fresh opportunities to extend the orchard’s reach into new communities.

If you’d like to join us, watch this space. We’ll be sharing dates on our blog and social channels over the coming months.

Six months on, the ground our volunteers prepared is doing its job. The saplings are settling in, the historic paving we uncovered is finding a new purpose, and the Great Canal Orchard is quietly, steadily growing. There are no harvests yet – that will take time. But the work has begun, and we’re proud to be part of it.