Chinbrook Meadows Apple Day
Saturday 19th September 2026
Apple Day was launched in 1990 and is now celebrated in hundreds of locations. One of these events was held in the small orchard of Chinbrook Meadows and organised by ChART (Chinbrook Action Residents Team), the Friends of Chinbrook Meadows and and Chinbrook Community Orchard (@cc_orchard), with apple tasting, apple pressing, activities for children, etcetera.
The Quekett was invited to participate as part of our outreach programme, and Lisa and Nigel Ashby, Jacky McPherson and Alan Wood brought microscopes and collected specimens to show to families.
The event got off to an excellent start with sandwiches, cakes and hot and cold drinks provided by the café in the park.
Chinbrook Meadows Café
Nigel Ashby went to collect specimens from the ponds, using a net with a long telescopic handle (Leeda R2062 Power Landing Handle).
Nigel Ashby collecting
The ponds have survived the drought. Some of them have lots of duckweed, others have fairly clear surfaces.
![Pond with duckweed](/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/pond-duckweed-2026-apple-700.jpg")
Pond with duckweed
The River Quaggy has almost dried up, so we did not try to collect samples.
River Quaggy
Back in the orchard, the catch was poured into a white dish, and then we used pipettes to transfer specimen into small Petri dishes so that we could examine then under the microscopes.
Sample from the ponds
We found large numbers of Daphnia, a few copepods, nymphs of mayflies, ramshorn snails, a hog louse (Asellus) and a small stickleback. All of the specimens were returned to the ponds.
Lisa and Nigel Ashby brought a couple of digital microscopes with built-in screens and a small stereo microscopes. Their specimens included pieces of snakeskin and wings of butterflies and flies, mounted in glass slide mounts for 35mm film.
Digital and compound microscopes
Lisa Ashby with visitors
Lisa Ashby with children
Jacky McPherson, Lisa Ashby and Nigel Ashby
Lisa Ashby with visitors
Jacky McPherson brought her trinocular Novex compound microscope, with a ToupCam digital camera sending images to a laptop computer. Jacky also brought some prepared slides, and demonstrated how to make leaf prints of the underside of leaves with UV-setting resin and a UV lamp for drying nail polish. She also brought a copy of the popular 1986 edition of Collins Field Guide to Freshwater Life by R. Fitter & R. Manuel.
Jacky McPherson
Alan Wood brought his Olympus SZ4045 zoom stereo microscope, with an LED ring-light connected to a power bank. His specimens included Daphnia from the ponds, and lichens on twigs that he found on the ground in the orchard.
Stereo microscopes
Lisa brought photomicrographs by David Linstead, and lots of the free Quekett leaflets such as Things to look at with microscopes: Pond life and Things to look at with magnifiers and microscopes.
Visitors with stereo microscopes
Foliose lichen on a twig under a stereo microscope
Foliose lichen (? Xanthoria sp.)
Twig with crustose lichen
Crustose lichen (? Lecanora sp.)
The apple trees in the orchard did not produce any mature fruit this year, so heritage varieties were obtained from Brogdale Farm.
Heritage varieties of apple for tasting
Tasting apples
Crushing sliced apples with a fruit scratter, to make apple pomace
Pressing apple pomace to extract juice
To keep the children occupied, Clay at The Ringway had a stand where they could make insects out of clay.
Clay insects
There were also pens and paper for children to draw and colour.
Colouring
Bicycle maintenance
Chinbrook Action Residents Team and Friends of Chinbrook Meadows
Report and photographs by Alan Wood