“Kent, Sir – everybody knows Kent – apples, cherries, hops and women” says the famous quote by Charles Dickens.
October is Harvest time in Kent and apples are one of our most important crops. We still grow thousands of acres of apples in the ‘Garden of England’ today.
Apples first appeared in the Bible, when Adam & Eve tasted the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.
Apples are a member of the Rose family and a symbol of love too!
The Romans introduced apples into Britain from Europe, where they flourished, as we have good soils and a moderate climate with plenty of sunshine.
Pomona was a Roman goddess, who was the keeper of orchards and fruit trees. Pomona is associated with the flourishing of fruit trees. She is usually portrayed bearing a cornucopia or a tray of blossoming fruit.
Pomona – the Roman God of Orchards and Fruit Trees
Wicca Magazine, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
After the Norman Conquest, Benedictine monasteries such as Christchurch in Canterbury, began to cultivate apples in a ‘Pomerium’, or apple garden along with pears, which were eaten and made into cider.
However war, the Black Death and the Dissolution of the Monasteries led to a decline in the growth of apples up until the sixteenth century.
Henry VIII’s fruiterer, Richard Harris was asked to plant an orchard of ‘pippin’ apples’ in Teynham Kent, together with other soft fruit. The orchard was used to distribute fruit to other growers and this area became the East Kent Fruit Belt.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many orchard were planted, which supplied the growing population of London and the area became known as the ‘Larder for London’.
By the late C19th, Kent had 25,000 acres of apple orchards, giving rise to a spectacle of apple blossom each Springtime, followed by a fantastic crop of fruit each October.
Spring blossom in May, near Goudhurst, Kent
Brogdale Collections, near Faversham in Kent is the home of the National Fruit Collection and provides access and education about the National Fruit Collection. Set in over 150 acres of farmland, Brogdale has 2300 varieties of different apples – the largest fruit collection in the world!
There are many varieties of apple worldwide today, but sixty varieties originated in Kent and can often be found at farmer’s markets and farm shops.
Dessert apples include Falstaff, Fiesta, Saturn, Scrumptious, Early Worcester and Tydeman’s Late Orange.
Cooking apples from Kent include Warner’s King, Gooseberry Apple and the Kentish Fillbasket.
Beauty of Kent – This culinary variety was first recorded in 1790, it became popular with cooks during Queen Victoria’s reign. Queen Victoria was a big fan of baked apples. The large fruit are yellow and the apples have a rich, sweet flavour.
Flower of Kent – a very rare apple today. A green cooking apple also known as ‘Isaac Newton’s Apple’. It is believed that Newton was sitting beneath a tree of this variety at his home, Woolsthorpe Manor, in Lincolnshire, when he was struck by the apple, which inspired him. Brogdale, near Faversham has an example of this tree.
Apple Trees bearing fruit near Selling, Kent
Today the best known area for growing apples are around Faversham and Sittingbourne. Travel by train between Canterbury and Sittingbourne in Springtime to experience row after row of beautiful apple blossom.
Cider has been around almost as long as apples and pre-dates the Roman invasion, when the drink would have been made from wild ‘crab’ apples.
Kent ciders are made from dessert and cooking apples, which produce a smooth and often strong cider, due to the high sugar content.
36 dessert apples will make around 4.5 litres of cider and 45% in the UK are used to make cider.
In Kent, we make around 130 millions gallons cider each year
Babies were baptized in cider in the fourteenth century, as it was at that time, cleaner than water!
Captain Cook took cider on his ships to combat scurvy, a common complaint
Juices from Apples
To make around 4.5 litres of apple juice, you need around 9kg of apples.
To make a premium juice, apples are processed as little as possible after pressing.
Kent juice producers use a mixture of new and more traditional varieties of apple, which are naturally sweet with no added sugars.
Cox and Bramley, Jonagold, Spartan, Russet are some of the varieties of apples used and may be combined with other Kent fruit such as rhubarb, raspberry, pear and strawberry.
Local producers include the following
Brogdale Craft Cider http://www.brogdalecider.co.uk/
Kentish Pip https://www.kentishpip.co.uk/
Biddenden Cider https://biddendenvineyards.com/
Duddas Tun Cider https://duddastuncider.com/
Local events this October connected with apples and cider include :-
Apple Fayre – Perry Court Farm, Ashford 5 and 6 October 2024 https://www.perrycourt.farm/apple-fayre
Real Ale & Cider Railway Festival – Spa Valley Railway, Tunbridge Wells 17 – 20 October 2024 https://www.spavalleyrailway.co.uk/product.php/6520/real-ale-cider-festival
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