News

As part of Stroud Valleys Project’s 30^th Anniversary celebrations, the local charity has been awarded funds from Awards for All to plant a variety of trees in the local area. The charity’s CEO planted the first of the trees at the Giffords Circus headquarters in Lypiatt near Stroud with Nell Gifford, the owner/producer of Giffords Circus.

The trees came from Day’s Cottage which specialises in old and unusual varieties of Gloucestershire apple and pear trees. Nell and the team at Giffords chose the Jenny Lind variety of apple tree. This variety of dessert apple is a Gloucestershire listed species, named by Gloucestershire Orchard Trust as a critical species, found in fewer than 10 Orchards across Gloucestershire.

Jenny Lind was a Swedish opera singer from modest beginnings who was often known as the ‘Swedish Nightingale’. She was one of the most highly regarded singers in the 19^th Century. In 1850, she went to America at the invitation of the showman P T Barnum. She earned more than $350,000 from those concerts, donating the proceeds to many charities.

In 1852 whilst in America, she married pianist, Otto Goldschmidt and subsequently had three children. She moved to Malvern in 1883 to be near her daughter.