Shenley Park

History of Apple Day

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• HISTORY OF SHENLEY PARK
  • HISTORY OF PORTERS PARK
  • HISTORY OF SHENLEY HOSPITAL
  • HISTORY OF SHENLEY PARK TRUST

Apple Day was initiated by Common Ground on October 21st in 1990 when they took over the Piazza at Covent Garden (London) for a demonstration of the importance of the apple to our culture, landscape and wildlife.

Common Ground

Stallholders who had different connections with the apple were chosen from across the country: organic growers; the WI, with chutneys, jellies and pies; a school from north London using its orchard as a classroom; nurserymen dispensing advice as well as trees; bee keepers; juice makers; cider makers with presses; photographs of orchards; and a hundred varieties of apples to taste and talk about. Apple ‘doctors’ and identifiers worked non-stop all day.

Common Ground wanted to create a popular festival, a date in the calendar, to alert people to our heritage of fruit, to broaden their knowledge and to inspire action. By giving people reasons to value and conserve them they aimed to prevent further extinction of varieties and loss of traditional orchards.

The intention was to encourage others to take the idea on and Shenley Park was one of the 50 events held the following year, 1991. It is now a nationwide annual event that links the fruit we eat with the people who grow it and the places they make in the process. The apple, with its powerful symbolism, rich poetry and extraordinary variety, was chosen to stand for all, though its success has prompted Damson Day in Westmorland, Plum Day in Pershore, Pear Day at Cannon Hall Museum in Yorkshire.

It has been celebrated in village halls, the Houses of Parliament, school meals services, museums, nurseries, allotments, bakers’ shops, restaurants, doctors’ surgeries, arts centres, agricultural and horticultural colleges, botanic gardens and community orchards: by farmers, fruit growers, cider makers, juice producers, English Heritage, the National Trust, the WI, the Wildlife Trusts and the Soil Association, as well as by families and friends at home. Some are domestic parties; some attract thousands of people.

The apple is a wonderful emblem of diversity. In Britain we have grown more than two thousand varieties and hundreds more cider apples. The Carlisle Codlin, Crawley Beauty, Devonshire Quarrendon and Worcester Pearmain tell of the place of origin. Ashmead’s Kernel, Cox’s orange Pippin, Laxton’s Superb, Peasgood’s Nonsuch and Charles Ross tell of the people who developed and raised them, and their stories provide a further expression of the place – memorable, repeatable.

Click here for details on Shenley Park Apple Day and Apple Days past and future.