Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, lavender’s green…
…but mostly light violet. Norfolk Lavender has about 100 acres in the County and after trundling past their home base at Heacham several times, we decided to call in. The house colours are unsurprisingly lavender and purple, being found on the fencing, the tea rooms, the packaging and even the uniforms.
So, how do you turn a cottage industry growing lavender into a tourist attraction? By having many strings to their bow. A garden centre, tea rooms, gift shop, gardens, the National Lavender collection, guided tours. Make it coach friendly, free admission and prominent.
On arrival, we took the opportunity to sign up to an imminent tour, finding ourselves the only people on it. After being told the history of the mill and lots about lavender & herbs, we were taken into a rather ordinary looking Atcost agricultural building which we were told was the drying shed. Here concrete slots in the floor were uncovered by removing wooden blocks and hot air blown through the piles of cut lavender. The shed was currently empty as the crop is harvested in the summer months but we were assured that it would be bulging in a couple of months. (During the harvesting season, an extended tour takes visitors out to the fields in a mini-bus, where you can see the crop being cut. A mechanical harvester with three people replaces forty crop pickers, although the latest harvester isn’t as good it seems as the driver isn’t as low to the crop and cannot control it as effectively. Having said that, he isn’t in danger of getting cropped himself!)
Next to the drying shed was the distillery. Two rather unassuming looking tanks were the copper stills, looking rather drab with their lagging. Here the lavender was piled in in layers, being compacted down using a large weight on a chain hoist. Once full, the lid was fitted linking up to the condenser unit and steam was bubbled through for many hours, eventually yielding small quantities of lavender oil from the water/oil separator unit. (The oil is collected in demijohns and the hundred acres yields only a few dozen jars so it isn’t cheap!)
So what can you put lavender in? Pot Pourri, of course, as well as fragrances and bathroom products. What was slightly more unexpected was beer, liquers and- ice cream. (It was reminiscent of Palma Violets).
The photos have captions below, giving more information.
