Author: Julian Moores, Pump Bottom Farm, Appledram

Orders of the day, Volume 31, Issue 4, 1999

The earliest recorded orchards in the Appledram area were in Roman times and Pump Bottom Farm, close to the Roman palace at Fishbourne, was one of the original plantations. It is thought that the variety Pomme d’Apis is of Roman origin; indeed, the name cider itself may derive from the Latin ‘sicera’, Greek ‘sikera’, or Old English ‘seider’ meaning ‘an alcoholic drink’. The introduction of cider apples to Brittany may also be a result of the Roman invasion of Britain when many natives of the south of England fled to France, taking with them their precious apple trees. Good growing stock was also taken to Normandy by St Teilo of Wales and presented to Bishop Sampson; together the two men planted a vast orchard which was still known and farmed some 600 years later.

By the 13th century cider was produced in most of the home counties and as far north as Yorkshire and Lancashire, thus showing the importance of the beverage in Great Britain. In the early 16th century Henry VIII sent his chief fruiterer to France to search for new and interesting varieties to improve his English tree stocks and vary the taste of his traditional ciders. The importance of cider through the ages increased and was probably drunk, together with beer, instead of water by most people as the water was foul and often carried disease. In 1763 a tax of four shillings per hogshead was imposed and gave the excise men the right to enter a person’s home to search for a brew. There was a huge outcry over the tax and in 1766 the tax was relaxed to exclude home-brewed cider, and to this day a farmer growing his own fruit may produce 1500 litres of cider without paying any duty. The imposition of this tax, together with huge imports of wine from France and the production of cheap gin, led to the decline of cider consumption in the 18th century.

The name Appledram comes from the Anglo-Saxon ‘apple-tre-ham’, or ‘apple tree village’ - an area closely associated with the production of fruit for many hundreds of years. The Appledram range of ciders available at the farm are dry, medium, sweet and a range of speciality and vintage ciders. All the ciders are made by traditional methods; only the varieties used are different nowadays, and due to the shortage of many of the old types, much of the production is from dessert apples.

The farm cidermaking tradition in Britain mainly relates to each individual farm producing its own liquor for the forthcoming year from fruit grown on the home acreage. This cider was an essential part of payment and refreshment for the agricultural labourers during the busy times of haymaking and harvest when the thirst equalled the magnitude of the task in hand. Cider was never considered to be a cash crop on the farms of England, although some was sold to pubs for re-sale to customers, and travelling cider merchants would buy a gallonage for sale in the towns which they visited. Normally every labourer would be given around half a gallon of cider as his daily ration and this was considered an equally important part of his wages as the firewood or potatoes he was occasionally given as perks. The daily ration would be dispensed from a large wooden barrel on the farm into the labourer’s small wooden barrel or firkin. This was accompanied by a drinking vessel fashioned from a cow’s horn and holding around a quarter pint of liquid. Cider was particularly important at harvest and haytime as it constituted a liquid currency. Any farmer short of a good brew would find it hard to recruit the labourers required for the extra work at these times of year and would have to do some bartering with someone with a surplus just to keep his men happy.

The traditional varieties of apples bred over the years in the West Country and Herefordshire are loosely divided into bittersharps such as Dymock Red, Kingston Black, Foxwhelp and Joeby Crab, and when subtly blended with bittersweets such as Knotted Kernel, Strawberry Norman and Upright French, produce the complex real ciders which can still be enjoyed in the more obscure county areas.

Amazingly, there are still some 630 small cider producers in England, constituting only around 6% of the total gallonage in the country; the rest comes from the major producers of pasteurised, coloured, sweetened and polished product - cider by name only.