Strong winds on Wednesday almost erased another little-noticed piece of
Brampton’s history. An apple tree, rotten of trunk and with no crown to speak of, displays what must be a terminal split. Structurally unsound, but still just standing, it seems unlikely that it will survive for much longer. It’s significance being that it’s origins seem likely to be domestic; planted at the end of a garden or small holding in an area
which seems today to be just farmland. I mentioned the site in an earlier piece (6th November 2011) and I have yet to establish the real recent history of this site.

The ancient history of the site is much easier to identify. For the old apple tree
marks the edge of ancient track which leads to what seems to have been a wharf
or loading area on the original shore of the Bure. This was not the Bure as we know now, but the Roman waterway, bustling with shallow drafted sailing vessels collecting the amphorae and other pottery from the nearby industrial town with its many kilns. Within yards the astute observer can cast from the site of a rural dwelling of the nineteenth century to the fourth century AD.