Inside

  • the orchard
  • your water bill, line by line
  • half-term for free
The Port Avery Courier
No. 214Wednesday7 October2026

The weather

bright and blustery, a cold wind off the estuary. High tide 08:21.

Port Avery's weekly paperWednesday edition · £1.20 in shops · free online

The Port Avery Courier, Wednesday edition, No. 214

Neighbourhoods

The orchard nobody planted

Forty pear trees on the edge of the Kestrel estate were left behind by a nursery that closed in 1987. Now the whole street picks them.

The pears on the Kestrel estate. Take what you can carry. AI-generated

Nobody on the Kestrel estate remembers who planted the pear trees, because nobody did. They were nursery stock, left in the ground when the Hollins nursery closed in 1987 and the land was forgotten.

The trees grew anyway. For years their fruit fell and rotted in the long grass. Then, four autumns ago, a retired teacher called Win Abbott put up a ladder and a hand-written sign: Take what you can carry.

This year the street picked more than a tonne.

Continued on p. 5 →
Tram 11 in the depot. Volunteers say it will carry passengers again in the spring. AI-generated

Walks

A Sunday walk along the old tram line

Six kilometres from the depot to the sea, following rails that have been under the road since 1961.

The trams stopped running in Port Avery in 1961, but they never quite left. Their rails are still under the tarmac on Station Road, and in hot summers they show through. This walk follows them from the old depot to the sea front, past the cast-iron shelter at Fiveways and the bricked-up tram shed that is now a climbing wall. Allow two hours, and finish at the kiosk on the promenade, which has served tea since the trams were still running.

Continued on p. 2 →

Families

Half-term: twelve things to do that cost nothing

Half-term starts on Friday. Here are twelve things to do in Port Avery that cost nothing, tested by the Courier's own children, who were not asked. 1. Count the bubbles. The Merrow Field Station runs a free family morning at the lake on Saturday: nets, trays and a microscope that shows what lives in a drop of marsh water. 2. Ride the ferry and back. Under-twelves travel at no charge with an adult, and the view of the harbour from halfway across is the best in town. 3. The library's Monday matinee. A film, a carpet and no talking, at two. 4. The tram depot. The volunteers restoring Tram 11 let visitors watch on Wednesday afternoons, and will explain the brakes at length. 5. Rock pools at Gull Point, two hours either side of low tide. Put the rocks back the way you found them. The other seven, from the climbing wall's free taster hour to the bakery on Mill…

Continued on p. 9 →

Beaches

Morning swimmers ask for a lifeguard at Fiveways

The sea swimmers who meet at Fiveways beach every morning at seven, whatever the weather, have asked the council for a lifeguard during the summer holidays. The group started with four people and now has more than two hundred members, about sixty of whom swim on a normal weekday. Its organiser, Maggie Thorne, says the beach has become busy with families who have seen the swimmers and followed them in, "without always noticing that the tide comes round the point like a train". The council says a seasonal lifeguard would cost about £22,000 a year and that it will look at the request in the spring budget.

Continued on p. 2 →

Council

Recycling days change in the east of the city

Recycling collections in the east of the city move from Tuesdays to Thursdays from the first week of November, as the council merges two rounds. A leaflet will come with the next collection. Glass is still collected separately, on the same day as before.

Continued on p. 2 →

Classifieds

FREE. Pears. As many as you can carry. Kestrel estate, the end by the old nursery fence.

WANTED. Volunteers to count bubbles on Lake Merrow this winter. Warm socks compulsory.

FOR SALE. Rowing machine, used twice, both times with good intentions.

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