Apples

Arlingham Schoolboys, Brown French, Cambridge Quoining, Kenchy Pippin, Shopground Kernel … just some of the wonderfully exotic names of the 70 or so apple varieties that come from Gloucestershire that still exist.

Arlingham Churchyards, Bastard Underleaf, Black French, Bromesberrow Crab, Cabbage Apple, … just some of the many, many, many varieties of apple from Gloucestershire that are now extinct or are, at best, lost. There may be a specimen somewhere, lying unloved and unattended, in a hedge or thicket, but unless someone takes a scion from it, grafts it, plants it and cares for it then that variety disappear too.

variety, home grown

There are about 5,000 apple varieties in the world, of which 2,500 come from Britain. Some of these have been created very deliberately, in the search for improvement if not perfection. In the early 20th century, the Laxton brothers of Bedfordshire developed several notable varieties, Laxton’s Fortune, Laxton’s Superb and Lord Lambourne, for example, this last a cross between James Grieve and Worcester Pearmain developed in a search for improvement, if not perfection.

Others arose by chance, a result of random fertilisation of blossom and luck that the resulting seed fell somewhere where a fruit-bearing tree could develop. Some of the most popular cider apples are such “wildings”, Yarlington Mill and Dabinett to name but two.

With so much diversity close to hand, what need is there to get apples from further afield?

lost …

Here’s a list of Gloucestershire apple varieties that have been lost, most probably extinct. compiled from Charles Martell’s encyclopædic pomona, Native Apples of Gloucestershire. Less than 100 years ago many of these were well known and popular in particular parts of the county and each and every name in the list has history and knowledge and tradition associated with it, recorded now only for posterity. Never again will we, or anyone else, have the experience of drinking cider made from Red Royal apples, recorded as “a favourite apple in the Gloucestershire orchards” and “thought to make cider of the first quality, of good colour and flavour, and very sweet and pleasant”.

Appleridge Pippin, Arlingham Churchyards, Bastard Underleaf, Beeches Green, Belcher’s Pearman, Black French, Brandy Redstreak, Brice’s Kernel, Bridge Pippin, Bromesberrow Crab, Bromley, Bush Apple, Cabbage Apple, Captain Kernel, Cooles Seedling, Crackstalk, Dainty Maids, Dobbs' Kernel Golden Pippin, Forest Styre, French Old Boy, Gloucester Quarantine, Gloucester Quoining, Golden Gloucester, Hackett’s Kernel, Hard Irons, Hatcher, Hawkins' Kernel, Haywood Kernel, Heming, Holbert's Victoria, Hook Street Pippin, Maiden Blush, Middle Hill Brandy, Mobley's Sowing, Morris' Pippin, Netherton Nonesuch, New Bromley, Normandy Pippin, Pages Yellow, Red Dick, Red French, Red Royal, Rissington Redstreak, Royal Wilding, Rusty Coat, Sophie Turk, Sour Vallis, Sweet French, Tippler's Kernel, Wheeler's Russet, White French, White Styre, Winter Pippin, Winter Russet