In his book Wiltshire, published by B.T. Batsford Ltd., in 1976, Ralph Whitlock noted the following remarks about the long grass meadows at Orcheston:
Old guide books and even Post Office directories extol the ‘long grass meadows’ at Shrewton and Orcheston. Those at Orcheston totalled only 2½ acres, but, says Thomas Davis of Longleat, writing in 1811, ‘the crop they produce, in some seasons, is so immense and of so good quality that the tithe hay of them was once sold for the sum of five guineas’. The grass is, in fact, the black grass, or creeping bent (Agrostis stolonifera), regarded nowadays as a weed. One supposes that here its reputation must have been achieved by comparison with the poor, thin herbage of the surrounding downs, though no doubt the grass grew luxuriantly in meadows subject to winter flooding.