PECKISH people in Oxford looking for nourishment and even a tipple or two have been given sound advice by foraging experts – look up.

Earlier this year 10 gallons of the first known wine made from sour cherry trees in Blackbird Leys were created, putting to bed the myth they are poisonous.

Urban fruit harvesting group Abundance Oxford has pointed to the wealth of varieties growing in the city and encouraged others to look out for them.

Creator Dot Tiwari said: “We are really keen for more people to get involved and engage with their surroundings.

“Urban fruit and vegetables have a really good nutritional value as well as being free and accessible.

“Particularly in the UK, we have lost that connection with nature and those skills. It’s worthwhile looking up when you walk around at what trees are near you.”

Raising a glass to local produce in Oxford, Barton resident Chaka Artwell spent hours collecting sackfuls of cherries from a well-known tree in front of Blackbird Leys Community Centre. After a month of fermentation with sugar and yeast, the result was 60 bottles of a medium-sweet red wine.

Mr Artwell said: “In Oxford the cherry blossom in the spring ought to be a tourist attraction and the blossom in Rose Hill, Blackbird Leys and Cowley is beautiful to behold. All I did to the cherries was wash them, squash them and add sugar and yeast and mother nature did the rest. It is a wonderful experience to be able to pick fruit straight from the tree and watch that become wine after weeks of fermentation.”

Mr Artwell is now encouraging the city’s community centres to set up clubs for people to pick local fruit and put it to use.

He said: “We are spoiled by the availability of fruit in the summer. Apples, pears and elderflowers were also abundant this year.

“The idea would be to make use of all the fruit that freely grows around us. The club would demonstrate how to juice, pasteurise and ferment, which would be a great way of passing on skills and recycling the harvest.”

Despite the cherry trees’ presence on the estate for decades, many Blackbird Leys residents have long-believed the fruit to be poisonous.

One man famously bucking the trend is Jim Hewitt, 71, who has run the Blackbird Leys Credit Union inside the community centre for 20 years and has always eaten them.

He said: “Adults don’t usually say, but children always tell me they’re poisonous. People turn up their nose and don’t realise that they have this resource.

“They have quite a strong, distinctive, bitter taste.

“I imagine you must have do add quite a lot of sugar to get the sweetness.

“But it sounds very interesting and I would certainly be up for trying a glass.”