Marking Apple Day
It’s Apple Day on October 21.
Now in its 24th year it was launched by the charity Common Ground to create an annual autumn custom.
It’s intended to be a celebration and a demonstration of the variety of British apples available, many of which are becoming rarer. It’s also about celebrating the richness and diversity of our landscape, ecology and culture and raising awareness about food provenance.
Middle East
Apples came to Britain from the Middle East, where they originated more than 4,000 years ago.
It’s thought that the Romans brought organised cultivation to Britain when they gifted plots of land to retired soldiers to help them to settle in the country. Romans also used apples as a beauty product by pulping the fruit and mixing it with lanolin to make a face cream.
Apple cultivation has taken place for at least the last 1000 years and various varieties came to Britain with the Normans in 1066.
Luxury items
On the instructions of Henry VIII, after the devastation of rural areas in the 13th century because of the plague and the War of the Roses, fruiterer Richard Harris launched the first large-scale production orchards.
From the 13th to 18th centuries, apples were sold as luxury items with the Old English variety being the main dessert apple.
Costermonger
The cooking equivalent was the Costard, which led to the term costermonger, who was an apple salesman.
In the Victorian era, as explorers scoured the world for new varieties, the number of varieties exploded. These were planted at Brogdale in Kent and form the basis for the National Fruit Collection, which now has more 2,000 varieties.
The main English variety since 1870 has been the Cox’s Orange Pippin, which was first bred by Richard Cox in 1825.
Bramley
The Bramley, which is the nation’s favourite cooking apple, was first introduced around 1857. The tree belonged to a butcher called Mr Bramley. The original tree blew down in a storm in the early 1900s, but a branch grew up and still survives today.
Our products
Pop in soon to find out what products we’ve in stock at the moment that feature apples.