The autumn festival of Apple Day was started by the organisation Common Ground in 1990.

The day itself is supposed to be 21st October, but people celebrate in their own ways and times, we try to have our event on the second or third Saturday in October. Although Apple Day is about apples (not exactly cryptic, is it?) it is meant by Common Ground (see their website) to be about celebrating local distinctiveness and a sort of peaceful rebellion against the boring sameness of everything these days. The festival's initiators thought that for England in particular the apple was a great emblem to use since each area has its own varieties with links to the place. Yes to regionality, fruits in their proper season, history and local distinctiveness, NO to the globalised industrial apple!

Of course people like Julia and I have jumped on the bandwagon and used Apple Day as a marketing opportunity and/or interpreted it in our own way, but why not? The English apple harvest, and indeed blossom time, is worth celebrating, and the best way to keep a tradition going is for people to have a good time and make a little money out of it! Seriously, as long as you keep buying our apples at a realistic price, we'll keep growing them, with God's help. See the Common Ground web site for further Apple Day details.

Our event will be held from 10 am until 15.00  at Durley Memorial Hall, Durley on Saturday 20th October 2007. Durley is halfway between Bishop's Waltham and Fair Oak, the Memorial Hall is half way between the Denhams corner roundabout (a mile south of Fair Oak) and the Robin Hood pub, its a big red brick building by a turn in the road, you won't miss it. For navigators, the OS grid reference is 516 east, 167 north. There is reasonable parking. Its a shame we can't have the event a mile away at the orchard but the logistics don't work out. Admission is free, we hope you will buy some apples.

Centrepiece will be an exhibition of as many seasonal apples as we can put up. We hope to have a display of 20 plus apples including Kidd's Orange Red, Orleans Reinette, Pitmaston Pineapple, Ribston Pippin, Sunset, Suntan, Spartan,  Ashmead's Kernel,  Adam's Pearmain, King of the Pippins, Winter King, Egremont Russet, Court Pendu Plat and perhaps half a dozen others, plus some cider apples such as Yarlington Mill and Kingston Black. Please note  they are not all for sale, some are very rare apples and we only grow a few for exhibition and mother stock to graft from. Also, we won't have early apples like Irish Peach, Baker's Delicious and Laxton's Epicure as these don't store and are finished by the end of August. If you have any uncommon or interesting apples of a named variety you would like to display, bring them 3 or 4 along with a little note and we will put them on display with ours.
 

There will be refreshments including apple cake, coffee and tea, fresh pressed 100% apple juice from our orchard, and thankfully a general licence for the hall has been granted, so we will be offering cider.
 

Julia will be doing tasting and apple sales, I will be on hand with  reference books  and will try to identify any apples you bring, identification free of charge but not guaranteed accurate! We love to talk about apples and orchards and would love to offer any advice and hear YOUR stories, market activity permitting-if we are dealing with a queue of people buying apples, get some coffee or apple juice and we'll chat when we're free.
 

If you can't come to our event, try to support Apple Day by attending an event near where you live, check the common ground web site.

Why not plan a modest event yourself? If there are half a dozen friends and neighbours in your community with a big old apple tree or 2 where most of the fruit goes to the birds, why not club together and buy a small apple crusher and press from Vigo, bring your apples and get the kids to turn the handles and crush them for some juice? You could have a great little party, ask some friends round, maybe raise a hundred pounds for the charity of your choice and make some new friends? Read some apple or countryside related poetry, sell ploughmans' lunches with an apple and some juice, make apple cake, hot cider punch, get some decent bottled ciders in from a big supermarket or independent off licence (Thatchers, Westons, something from Normandy would be a fine start-not M*****rs for pity's sake) in for a tasting and have a good old fashioned fun time with people of all ages. Start small-your garden will be big enough, if not surely there is a local hall that can be hired for a few pounds. Get local artists along, get the kids painting apples or doing a longest apple peel competition, whatever. Better than Eurovision or indeed the mega boring FA cup. England could do with some new seasonal traditions, they have to start somewhere. Check the common ground web site for other ideas.return to menu