Landkey Village
Community information, events and history
In Brief
Find the Landkey Village Open Forum on:
Next Event
Our next village event will be St Paul's Pet Blessing and Teddy Bears' Picnic on 23rd August 2026 at 3:00 PM in St Paul's Church garden
Parish Council
Read the Parish Council Minutes of 3rd June 2026
Our next Parish Council meeting will be on 2nd September 2026 at 7:00 PM in The Old School Centre, Manor Road
Community Information
Millennium Green
LUC grants
Landkey organisations or individuals might be eligible for a grant through Landkey United Charities.Newsletter
Read the latest
Landkey Newsletter
here
More Images 
Landkey Millennium Green
Mazzards and the Green's orchard
Mazzard is the name for the almost extinct small black cherry that has been domesticated from wild cherries, Prunus Avium. It has been almost completely replaced by larger, redder cherry varieties of Prunus Cerasus. It remains a mystery why mazzards were grown in a small number of parishes east of Barnstaple when abandoned elsewhere.
Charles II, when Prince of Wales, had enjoyed mazzard pie when visiting Barnstaple during the English Civil War.
In the 20th Century the area of Landkey’s orchards planted with mazzards contracted from around a hundred acres to three. The small fruit, although delicious, was grown on very large trees. Protection from birds and picking with long ladders made growing them uneconomic.
To conserve this historic fruit, with orchards so beautiful in blossom, became the object of the Landkey Orchards Committee and the newly formed Save our Orchards Campaign, (now Orchards Live), in the early 1990s. Thornhayes Nursery of Cullompton grafted young trees, and the new Millennium Green was the logical home for an orchard. Saplings of different varieties, (Dun, Hannaford, Green Stem Black, Small Black and Bottler), were planted on the new Green by Landkey children in December 1999.
Adjoining the mazzard trees on the Green is a small collection of apple trees which originated in or have long associations with Landkey. The varieties are Listener, Limberlimb/Limberland and Stockbearer. In addition there is a Devonshire Quarrendon apple, planted to mark the 70th Anniversary of the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Graft wood from Millennium Green trees has been used for the propagation of trees in many individual orchards as well as a substantial one at the National Trust’s Arlington property.
Images about mazzards (click to enlarge)
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