The Liz Clare community Orchard is for the benefit of all residents of the area.
The Orchard is manged by the Donnington Partnership CIO (Reg Charity No 1175291).
The Trustees named the Community Orchard in 2020 – the Liz Clare Community Orchard in memory of Donnington Councillor, Liz Clare who represented Donnington for 41 years.
The Community Orchard was started by Yugoslavian EVWs.
Some history of this is shown below.
Displaced Persons
After the war, many people found themselves many miles away from their homes, if indeed those homes still existed. The eastern European countries were also now under communist control and not an attractive place to return to, especially for those who had fought for Germany in the war. These Displaced Persons wandered around western Europe trying to find a place to live and many were placed into camps.
European Voluntary Workers
When most of the PoWs were sent home in 1948-9, they left a severe labour shortage in Britain. The government decided to replace the prisoners with Displaced Persons from other parts of Europe. Advertisements were put in European labour exchanges asking for stateless people to come and work in the UK. They were called European Voluntary Workers and most lived in camps that were once used by the Army or PoWs. The scheme ceased in 1951.
When Axis forces invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, the country quickly fell but two resistance groups, the royalist Chetniks and the Communist partisans, fought a guerrilla campaign against the occupiers and a bitter civil war against each other. The Allies decided to back Tito’s partisans and so, when the war ended, the Chetniks were left with nowhere to go. They crossed into Italy and were put into camps for displaced persons, in which they stayed for months and even years. The youngest and fittest Chetniks were allowed to come to Britain as European Voluntary Workers. At the time, there was very little voluntary about it as the alternative was to stay in a Displaced Person camp. Around 100,000 displaced Europeans came here under the scheme, of whom 10,000 were Chetniks.
Donnington O Camp (SJ7014)
A camp that was set up in 1951 for European Voluntary Workers. Most of the EVRs who went there were Chetniks and, since they could not go back home, they settled to form a large community locally. Life in O Camp was apparently quite good. Most of them worked on the military base and made a reasonable living. They lived in Nissen huts that housed two men in each, heated by a central stove. The camp was only for men and if any man married they had to find alternative local accommodation. The leader of the camp was Captain Miodrag Krsmanovic, who had been captured in the early days of the war and spent a long time in a German prisoner of war camp. He became the link between the British Army who ran the base and the camp inhabitants.
The above photo shows a visit to the camp by members of the Yugoslav royal family. In the centre is Prince Andrija, son of King Petar’s brother, with his wife beside him and Captain Miodrag Krsmanovic on the left. Over 500 people passed through the camp between 1951-1963. Krsmanovic became friendly with Brigadier Barclay, the commanding officer of COD Donnington, who supported the construction of new accommodation on the site of the Nissen huts. This new accommodation was named Barclay Lodge. Those who created the original community still meet together in the two Serbian Orthodox churches in Telford and in a social centre, where there is a plaque to the work of those EVWs who came here to solve Britain’s labour shortage after the war.
The EVWs at Barclay Lodge planted and maintained the Community Orchard, this was later taken on by Wellington Rural District Council, which was proceeded by Wrekin District Council, now Telford & Wrekin Borough Council. The Donnington Partnership CIO have now taken on management of the site for the community, it is maintained by volunteers.
The Fruits of the Orchard
- Apples, both edible and cooking
- Pears
- Damsons
- Cherries
The Liz Clare Orchard is maintained by volunteers and now has its own Facebook page.
There are also some interesting wildlife, birds and insects that visit the garden.
The Community Orchard is a great space for relaxation, collecting free fruit and supporting Biodiversity.
