In the centre of the village at the junction of Chapel Lane and the High Street is a small triangular shaped piece of land. It is a grassy area that is surrounded on all sides by roads, has two benches, a young tree and an ornamental fountain in one corner. It has been described as "the small village green" but is locally known as The Plantation. It is owned and managed by the Parish Council. It is too small to be considered a village green but why should it be The Plantation? The origin of the name is obscure and lost in the mist of time. The definition of a plantation is that it is either a large farm or estate usually in the tropics or sub-tropics or its an area planted with trees, etc. The Plantation in Mickleton is not large nor is it in the tropics (not yet anyway) but it had been planted with trees. One might reasonably surmise therefore that the name might refer to a plantation of trees.
However, plantation is a somewhat grandiose title for such a small parcel of land planted with a tree or two, as is calling it a village green. It had previously had iron railings round it but these were taken down during the war to support the war effort and the need for iron and steel. In a photograph of the Plantation from 1961 which is shown on the Mickleton Community Archive, three mature trees can be made out; one tree even has a circular bench around the base of the trunk. These were horse chestnut or conker trees. These trees have now gone; the ravages of time and disease having taken their toll. There is now one young tree - a decorative red horse chestnut - that has been planted to replace the previous trees. A new circular bench has been placed around the base of this tree. This bench was installed by the Mickleton Society and is dedicated to a previous Chairman of the Society. Whether one tree makes a 'plantation' is doubtful but the traditional name remains.
The red horse chestnut Aesculus x carnea is a horticultural hybrid between Aesculus Hippocastanum - the horse chestnut or conker tree - and Aesculus pavia - the red buckeye - and has been in cultivation since the 1820s. Neither species is a native of the UK. The red Buckeye is from the Southern United States. The Horse Chestnut was first introduced from Turkey in the late 16th century and is now widely planted in the UK. The flowers of the red horse chestnut are rose-red and borne on cone shaped flower clusters in May. The flowers of the common horse chestnut are usually white with a pink flush at the base. The seed is a glossy red-brown conker inside a spiky green husk.
The most famous use of the horse chestnut seed is in the game of conkers. Conkers is a traditional children's game using the seed of the horse chestnut tree. The game is played by two players, each with a conker threaded onto a piece of string: they take turns striking each other's conker until one breaks. The first record of the game is from the Isle of Wight in 1848.
At one corner of the Plantation is a notable memorial fountain. It is a Grade II listed building, dated 1875, designed by William Burges and erected for Sir J.M. Steele Graves. William Burges (1827-1881) was a Victorian architect who is reputed to be one of the greatest Victorian art-architectural artists. His work stands within the tradition of the Gothic revival.
The fountain is made of grey, ashlar (meaning finely cut) sandstone, and has a pointed gable with inset Gothic arch. At the rear of the inset it is decorated with three roundels of white marble. The central roundel shows the arms of the Graves family, the other two the carved heads of the patron and his daughter Mrs. Bowen Graves. There is a Lion head spout with a memorial inscription either side below the inset arch. The inscription on the fountain reads “The Water was brought into this Village in the year 1875 the Fountain built in Memory of Sir J M Steele Graves Bart and of his Daughter Mrs Bowen Graves who lie in the Church yard of this Parish”.
Sir J M Steele Graves was the son of Sir Richard Steele of Winchcombe but added Graves to his name after his marriage to Elizabeth Graves in 1839. She had inherited the Mickleton Manor estate in 1819 at the age of two, was the daughter of John Graves of Mickleton and as such a descendent of Richard Graves who had purchased the Manor from Edward Fisher in 1656.