Who would have expected to find an orchard here? Throttled by dual carriageways and access roads, nigh on an acre of fruit trees stood within the shadow of the “designer shopping outlet”. I paused at the gate. For a moment, in the half light of the midwinter afternoon, the old trees had the look of a resting herd of elephants: grey bark, thick and wrinkled; single branches lifted as though in trumpet; knotty holes twinkling like eyes.