Perry Pears
Gloucestershire is, together with Herefordshire and Worcestershire, the home of the perry pear and the county also hosts a National Collection of Perry Pears at the Orchard Centre, in Hartpury.
What is a perry pear?
Our thanks to Charles Martell for his kind permission to reproduce his introduction to his Pears of Gloucestershire and Perry Pears of the Three Counties.
It is generally accepted that the pear was introduced to the British isles by the Romans. These were large culinary pears that had to be cooked before consumption, but there was one, the falerian, that contained such a quantity of juice that it was used for wine or possibly perry.
Following the Romans’ departure, orchards were abandoned and the trees, self-seeding, steadily reverted to the original wild Pyrus communis, occasionally crossing with the only truly indigenous pears, Pyrus pyraster and Pyrus cordata.
By the 12th century, William, a monk at Malmesbury, noted that the Severn vale was “clad with apple trees and peare trees, not set nor grafted by the industry of man’s hand. But growing naturally of their own accord.”
Over the ensuing centuries new culinary and (later) dessert pears were introduced from mainland Europe to restock our orchards. But the wild (or, more correctly, feral) pears persisted, their tannins and acids making them virtually inedible.
In 1629 John Parkinson, herbalist, wrote, “the Choke peares and other wilde peares, both great and small, as they are not to furnish our orchard, but the woods, forests, fields and hedges, so wee leave them to their natural places,” but he added, “the perry made of Choke pears, notwithstanding the harshnesse and evill taste, both of the fruit when it is greene, as also the juyce when it is new made, doth yet after a few months become as milde and pleasant as wine …”.
In 1656 John Beale referred to the Barland pear, a variety found in Bosbury, Herefordshire, as being the best for perry, and at the same time, Daniel Colwall wrote of north-west Gloucestershire, “… it is pears it most abounds in, of which the best sort is that they name the Squash pear, which makes the best Perry of those parts.” He continued, “The pears for perry are the Red Squash pear esteemed the best, the John pear, the Hartpury Green pear, the Drake pear, the Green Squash pear, the Mary pear, the Lullam pear.”
The perry pears we know today are all descended from these early selections. A great many varieties have been recorded over the years – once believed to number around 300, but many of these were the same, having acquired local names. Nevertheless, we now have an incredible legacy of different perry pears, each suited to their local climate and soil (terroir) which are an irreplaceable par of our national – and local – fruit heritage.