Rivers Heritage Site and Orchard
Navigate this page: News and events General Information Website Information Get Involved | Upcoming EventsMaintenance Day: Sunday 3rd November, at 10:30 in the Rivers Orchard. Wassail: Saturday 18th January, at 18:30 Latest NewsIn 2025, we will be holding several events to celebrate 300 years since the founding of the Rivers Nursery. Further information to be announced. In the mean time, have a look at the history of the nursery and site. Elizabeth Waugh's book Rivers Nursery of Sawbridgeworth is still available to buy. A full history of group news is avaiable here. |
General Information
Initially formed in May 2014 and re-constituted in 2018, Rivers Heritage Site and Orchard (RHSO) is a volunteer group who work to protect, preserve and maintain the remaining Rivers Nursery site located West of Sawbridgeworth, Herts, UK and also maintain the historical information about the Rivers Nursery in the group's archives. We seek to continue the excellent work of previous volunteers on the current Rivers site.
The Rivers nursery was founded by John Rivers in 1725 and, when it closed in 1987, it was the oldest garden nursery in the UK. Many fruit varieties and horticultural techniques were developed on the site in Sawbridgeworth, especially by Thomas Rivers (1798-1877) and Thomas Francis Rivers (1830-1899). The history of the site was documented by Elizabeth Waugh in the 2009 book Rivers Nursery of Sawbridgeworth based on the archives of the group and interviews with local people. A brief history of the site is avaiable here.
The former nursery site is private land but is currently under a three year lease to Sawbridgeworth Council to allow access and maintenance of the orchard. The site can be accessed through a number public or permissive footpaths from Sawbridgeworth or High Wych. It is currently used by many local people for walking and peaceful enjoyment!
This site aims to provide information about the remaining Rivers Nursery site and the works of RHSO to maintain the site and its history as well as to promote the site as a community asset.
For further information about our work, please e-mail the RHSO committee. To be kept up to date on the groups events, please check the events page, join the mailing list or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.
Website Information
Please visit the following pages of this site for further information:
| Home | General Information and upcoming events. |
| History | A history of the Rivers Nursery and information on the fruit cultivars introduced by the Rivers family. |
| Orchard | Information about the orchard today and the the fruit varieties held there. |
| Archives | Electronic versions of selected books and publications written by Thomas Rivers and a selection of historical Rivers nursery catalogues. |
| Access | How to find the Rivers Orchard site, including an interactive map of the area. |
| Gallery | Pictures of the Rivers Nursery Site and Orchard, including the RHSO events and wildlife seen around the site. |
| History | A history of the Rivers Nursery and information on the fruit cultivars introduced by the Rivers family. |
| Events | Information of RHSO events, including Apple Day, Wassail and monthly maintenance days and how to volunteer to help with these. |
| History | A history of the Rivers Nursery and information on the fruit cultivars introduced by the Rivers family. |
| Sales | We sell our apple juice and the Rivers Nursery of Sawbridgeworth book by Elizabeth Waugh. |
| Committee | Details of the current RHSO, committee, constitution and a collection of our management policies, accounts, meeting minutes and some useful documents. |
| Wildlife | A wildlife diary of the Rivers site. Not currently updated, but an interesting historical collection. |
| Wassail | Lyrics and sheet music for our annual Wassail songs. |
| Members | Registered members can access this to upload pictures, news and documents to the site and to access member only documents. |
How to help us
We are always keen to have new volunteers help us with our work, please e-mail us if you are interested. You can help us in the following ways:
- Help with our site maintenance and fruit tree pruning (we provide tools and instruction, so no expertise required!) on our monthly maintenance days. We have many different maintenance activities that should suit a range of physical abilities.
- Help pick apples at our annual apple day (late September / early October) that we use to produce our apple juice for sale.
- Buy our apple juice or book on the history or the Rivers Nursery of Sawbridgeworth, or help sell our juice at local events.
- Attend our annual Wassail (January) where we celebrate the orchard with a wassail fire, drinks, snacks and wassail songs. If you are a keen singer or musician, you can help with leading the singing or playing our wassail music.
- Help prepare cakes and refreshments at our apple day and Wassail.
- Make a financial donation to help in our maintenance activities - e-mail us for more information.
- Spread information about our activities by word of mouth and share this site! We can arrange for a group member to talk about our activities, tree maintenance or Rivers Nursery history to local community groups - e-mail us for more information.
- Join or committee and help organise our events or publicise our group and events in the local press or on social media.
- If you have any information about the Rivers Nursery history, local newspaper articles, Rivers publications, etc that you would like to contribute to our archives, please e-mail us.