My Favourite Apple

(Written for South Lakeland Orchard Group newsletter)

                      The title of this article should be “One of my Favourite Apples” as I find it impossible to exclude   many other worthy contenders!

 

 

                   Lady’s Finger of Bledington   remains on the tree long after the leaves have fallen and when picked and stewed it does not break up and has no noteworthy flavour in the north of England. In the Cotswolds, however,” the fruit ripens in November and the flesh is sweet”. Its spectacular dark maroon colouring and unusual shape always elicits an awed and favourable response when viewed in apple displays. There is a story behind this photogenic apple.

               During the 1940’s Albert Harris, who lived in the Cotswolds, became aware of the apples in the village of Bledington on the Gloucestershire/Oxfordshire border. They were known as “Lady’s Fingers” and surviving trees were on their last legs, having been planted c 1850. Albert set  about  grafting from these dying  trees. The variety was a “local”apple, found only in and around two neighbouring villages.

             In the 1980’s Albert was living in Bletchley and decided to distribute his grafted trees far and wide. He wrote a letter to the Henry Doubleday organic movement magazine, generously  offering  “Lady’s Finger of Lancaster” to anyone interested. I met Albert on Poulton- le- Fylde railway station and exchanged a Hargreaves Greensweet for one of his trees. He had a number  in his possession and was on his way to Carlisle!

          I attended an early Northern Fruit Group Apple Day in the 1990’s and took with me new fruit from Albert’s tree. The apples were very unlike the Lady’s Finger of Lancaster specimens on display.

       I corresponded with Albert and he in turn contacted the RHS in 1998.He had already sent sample apples to the RHS eleven years previously, in the autumn of 1987 and was  informed at that time that  they were “possibly Lady’s Finger of Lancaster”. The second response was quite different …. “these apples are quite distinct from the cultivar we grow as Lady’s Finger of Lancaster  in the Wisley collection. They do not match the description of Lady’s Finger of Lancaster or any other Lady’s Finger apples described”. Scionwood was requested and  subsequently the apple was  added to the RHS orchard collection. The variety had been grown in the local area around the village of Bledington for generations and thanks to Albert’s  efforts, was now safe from extinction.

     In September  I visited an orchard across the road from L’Enclume  with Hilary Wilson and   was astonished to discover  a 25 year old Lady’s Finger of Bledington growing there. Albert had obviously stopped off in Cartmel en route to Carlisle!