Tenbury English Mistletoe Enterprise Mistletoe for Christmas, Weddings, valentines etc
Mistletoe Shop 07/08
   

About Tenbury Wells and about Mistletoe

This page gives some background information on Tenbury Wells and Mistletoe, with links for further information.

About Tenbury Wells

Tenbury Wells Pump RoomsTenbury Wells is a small ancient market town situated in the very north west of Worcestershire on the A456, close to the borders of Herefordshire and Shropshire. The area is well known for growing hops and cider apples - and was famously described by Queen Victoria as ”my little town in the orchard”. It has been a centre for the UK mistletoe trade for over 100 years – mistletoe grows readily in the local apple orchards, and the annual auctions attract stock from orchards in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire too.

Tenbury had the ‘Wells’ added to its name in the mid 19th century to help promote the Mineral Water Wells that had been found in the town from 1840 onwards. These mineral waters led to the building of the recently-restored Tenbury Spa, or Pump Rooms.

The town is separated from south Shropshire by the fast flowing River Teme, which begins its journey in mid Wales. The whole area, including the town centre, was badly affected by the recent summer floods, with many businesses affected and several events cancelled. The town is rapidly recovering however, and the autumn Applefest (20th October) and the winter Mistletoe Festival (1st and 2nd December) will demonstrate that Tenbury Wells is definitely open for business. For more information visit the Tenbury Wells Website.

Mistletoe Festival 2006About the Mistletoe Festival
Tenbury's Mistletoe Festival began in 2004, when the traditional Mistletoe Auctions, held in the town for over 100 years, seemed threatened with closure. Local people were determined Tenbury's Mistletoe legacy would continue, and so the Festival was born.

From small beginnings in 2004 much bigger Festivals ran in 2005 and 2006. One fixture, established in 2005, is National Mistletoe Day, endorsed by Parliament in 2005 and set to take place on 1st December each year.

The future of the traditional holly and mistletoe sales at the old livestock market is still not certain - the site remains vacant and liable for development. It is currently used as car-park, but is being made available again this year for the Mistletoe market.

For more information visit the Mistletoe Festival website.

 
 
  About Mistletoe  
 

Mistletoe at the Tenbury Wells Mistletoe Auction Market - JBriggs pictureMistletoe is a hemi-parasitic plant that grows on trees. English Mistletoe - the true mistletoe of tradition, is Viscum album, a species that occurs across Northern Europe - but there are many other species around the world.

English Mistletoe has been the subject of several conservation projects in recent years, most memorably the UK's national mistletoe survey of the 1990s. This confirmed the strong association of mistletoe with apple orchards, themselves a declining habitat, and implied long-term problems for mistletoe. It also confirmed the importance of the Worcestershire/ Gloucestershire/ Herefordshire areas for mistletoe - including Tenbury Wells.

Conservation projects for mistletoe, and harvestable mistletoe stock, continue. Current initiatives include the preliminary research on the economic value mistletoe brings to apple orchard owners and continuing mistletoe conservation projects locally and across the country.

This winter marks the 10th anniversary of the 1994-97 National Mistletoe Survey, organised by Plantlife and the Botanical Society of the British Isles was completed. To mark the occasion data from this survey are being re-assessed over the winter of 2007/08, with additional data gathering planned for January.

Mistletoe conservation efforts were boosted recently by the designation of Traditional Orchards as a Priority Habitat in the UK Biodiversity Plan (announced in August 2007 – details at http://www.ukbap.org.uk/newprioritylist.aspx). Traditional Orchards and Gardens are mistletoe’s primary habitat in the UK.

For more information on mistletoe visit the Mistletoe Pages Website.