Apple Heritage Day | Somerset

“What can your eye desire to see, your ear to hear, your mouth to take, your nose to smell, that is not to be had in an orchard, with abundance of variety?” 

(William Lawson, 1618, A New Orchard and Garden)

Common Ground, Orchards: A Guide to Local Conservation (Common Ground: London 1989)

This Saturday I sacrificed sleep to spend the day volunteering at the Quantock Apple Heritage Day in Somerset. Seeing as I hadn't been out of Bristol much since arriving, I figured this was the perfect opportunity to see the English countryside. 

Along with a fellow American in the history department, our job was to record local stories of orchards and  apples. These oral histories will be used by the university to discover lost orchards and preserve the few that survive today. Some people were more than willing to tell stories of orchards they grew up near, while others avoided the American girls carrying the iPads like the plague.

Over 600 people stopped by the first ever Quantock Apple Heritage Day, making it a pleasantly surprising success. I even managed to come back with a bottle of Somerset's finest Chaider (chai + apple cider = Chaider).

Enjoy the rest of National Apple Heritage weekend!
xoxo