December 2025

Published on December 1, 2025.

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Rivers300 comes to an End but what a year it’s been!

The anniversary year marking the founding in 1725 of Rivers Nursery in Sawbridgeworth comes to an end in December 2025. Rivers Heritage Site and Orchard, the group that maintains and protects the four acre Orchard representing the once 350 acre nursery, has put on a year of special events. From the Council Launch of Rivers300 in January 2025 to the last event - the presentation to the Children’s Art competition winners on November 20th, at 17.30 in the Sawbridgeworth Council Chamber - it has been a special year of history in the making. Our website will continue to hold a record of these events written up in the Diary pages for each month and in the articles by various authors shedding more light on aspects of Rivers History.

We hope that this year has extended the reputation of the Orchard and helped ensure its future. We hope we’ve made some new friends such as among the young singers from Leventhorpe school - who came to sing out wassail songs as never before - last January. Importantly we reinvigorated our close connection with Audley End where a Rivers glasshouse stands. Best of all, we’ve found more volunteers to join the experienced group! We hope you’ve had fun - we have!

Watch out for a festive Wassail in mid-January 2026.

The two images below are significant - the first is the joyful moment of tasting the newly pressed 2025 Apple juice. This culmination, this tasting when the Orchard maintenance team knows that a year’s effort has come to fruition and that the juice is delicious is a reward. The Orchard then goes into winter stillness in preparation for next year’s crop.

The second picture shows the group of Rivers volunteers who stepped up to form a 300 committee to initiate and develop the special events of the Rivers300 year, 2025. This required a good working relationship and good ideas. As we reach the end of that time we feel satisfaction in the breadth of the new initiatives we suggested which have been achieved with the help of the main committee members and other volunteers.


Juice quaffing in the Orchard.

The 300 Committee: from left: Adrienne Richardson, Hazel Mead, Lanier Pole, Chair, Eugene Keddy, Elizabeth Waugh, Colin Gill.

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