Apples and bears

ACCORDING to the enchanting 2020 book Orchard: A Year in England’s Eden, apples originated in the Tian Shan mountains of Kazakhstan. Their seeds were disseminated by hungry brown bears and, later, by horses travelling the Silk Road into Europe, where they cross-pollinated with the native crab apple. Eventually, the Normans brought the seeds to Britain.

By the 1880s, a necklace of orchards was strung across the Cotswolds from Sharpness to Evesham, producing apples with distinctively local names: Arlingham Schoolboys, Longney Russet and Hagloe Crab. Farm labourers were each supplied with a gallon of cider as they arrived in the morning—the best workers went where the best cider was. In the 1950s, orchards covered 15,000 acres of Gloucestershire.

This has now reduced to 3,000 acres, but there are signs of a revival: Gloucestershire Orchard Trust and Day’s Cottage cidery have created a seven-acre museum orchard to preserve the county’s 180 known varieties, farmers and landowners are replanting trees and there are