Essex Wildlife Trust Biological Records Centre has recently been working with other records centres in the East of England region to map and survey known orchard sites as part of Orchards East, a three year lottery funded project. The first phase of the Orchards East project involved mapping historic orchard sites from the 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey maps of the early 20th Century.

In total over 4,000 historic orchard sites were identified in Essex, using old Ordnance Survey mapping obtained under license from the National Library of Scotland.