Gloucestershire has a rich heritage of growing fruit and the Trust is playing a leading role in ensuring this history is conserved. There are 80+ apple cultivars from the county, over 15 varieties of plum and Gloucestershire, together with Herefordshire and Worcestershire, is considered to be the home of the perry pear.
Fruit Identification
Our orchards at Longney are home to a comprehensive and valuable collection of Gloucestershire’s apples and plums, as well as other rare varieties of cherry, gage and damson, ensuring the survival of the unique DNA each cultivar represents. The Trust, together with the Hartbury Heritage Trust (home of the National Collection of Perry Pears), is working with fruit ID, the Panel of Local Cultivars, the Marcher Apple Network and other organisations to build our knowledge and understanding of Gloucestershire’s fruit cultivars, building on the pioneering work done by Charles Martell, author of the Gloucestershire pomonas.
In recent years our knowledge has been transformed with the introduction of DNA profiling, which has allowed us to gain a more precise picture of local cultivars, for example by revealing that a cultivar known in Gloucestershire as Jackets and Petticoats is a local synonym for Ribston Pippin, a well-known dessert apple from Yorkshire, dating back to the 18th century and a likely parent of the exquisite and world-famous Cox’s Orange Pippin. And our understanding continues to evolve; in November 2023 Kempley Red was added to the list of apples that come from the county; scions have been grafted so this cultivar will be added to our collection at Longney.