Plums, Damsons and Cherries

The Trust’s collection at Longney has been planted to conserve as many examples of Gloucestershire’s stone fruit as possible, the bullaces, cherries, damsons and plums that originated in, or have a close connections with, the county.

Variety

The orchard also contains a collection of other varieties found elsewhere in Britain, also a few feral examples still found in woods and hedgerows. They may not be well-known, but they are part of Gloucestershire’s orchard heritage, they have a place in the history of fruit production in the county, and they are part of the nation’s genetic reserve. All told, it’s a comprehensive collection of stone fruit.

Information gathered from Charles Martell’s book | Native Plums (Prunes) of Gloucestershire | Part of the Gloucestershire Pomona Series

Variety Name	Status	Uses	Provenance	In Collection?
Barley Plum	Critically Rare	Dessert	Cleeve Hill, Bredon	Yes
Blaisdon Red	Extant	Culinary and Dessert	Blaisdon, 1800s	Yes
Bristol Plum	Extant	Dessert	Rodley, Bollow	Yes
Dymock Red Plum	Endangered	Culinary and Dessert	Dymock	Yes
Frampton Magnum Plum (also called Winterbourne Magnum)	Extant	Culinary and Dessert	Frampton Cotterell or Winterbourne	Yes
Grove’s Late Victoria	Extant	Culinary and Dessert	Unknown	Yes
Jacob	Extant	Dessert	Rodley, Bollow	Yes
Johnnie Moor Plum	Lost	Dessert	Between Cheltenham and Gloucester	Lost
Michaelmas Damson	Endangered	Dying, Culinary, Timber	Walmer Hill, Bollow	Yes
Old Pruin	Extant	Dessert and Dying	Bollow, Elmore, Rodley	Yes
Rodley Blackjack	Extant	Dessert and Dying	Rodley	Yes
Rowles Pruin	Critically Rare	Dessert	Arlingham	Yes
Shit Smock	Endangered	Culinary and Dessert	Unknown	Yes
Smith’s Pruin	Endangered	Dessert	Chaxhill	Yes
Sweet Damson	Extant	Jam, Dessert	Walmer Hill	Yes
Victor Christian Plum	Extant	Culinary	Unknown	Yes

Other Varieties Planted at Longney

Cherries	Damsons	Gages	Plums
Bottler	Aylesbury	Cambridge Gage	Belle du Louvain
Dun	Farleigh	Jefferson Gage	Burbank
Hannaford	German Prune	Old Greenage	Czar
Knight’s Early Black	German Prune		Datchet
Morello	King of Damsons		Denbigh
Napoleon Biggareau	Merryweather		Denbigh
Small Black	Shepherd’s Bullace		Dittisham Ploughman’s
Stella	Shropshire Pruin		Early Orleans
Waterloo	Sweet Prune		Heron
	Westmorland		Jimmy Moore
			Kirke’s Blue
			Lammas White
			Mallard
			Opal
			Pershore Emblem
			Purple Pershore
			River’s Early Prolific
			Swan
			Victoria
			Warwickshire Drooper
			Yellow Pershore

Spring – Summer 2024: focus on Johnnie Moor

With thanks to Charles Martell for his permission to reproduce information from his book, ‘Native Plums (Prunus) of Gloucestershire.

Johnnie Moore was reported to be a really high class dessert plum but is now extinct … a lesson on why it’s important to conserve all our fruit varieties. The Johnnie Moore Plum is mentioned in The Plums of England, by H.V. Taylor, Crosby Lockwood, 1949, and was said to be a seedling, grown in gardens in Cheltenham and other sources state the variety was to be found growing between Cheltenham and Gloucester, in the Golden Valley area. Searches by Charles Martell revealed nothing.

There is the possibility that Johnnie Moore is a synonym for the Jimmy Moore plum; Charles Martell points out that no book mentions both varieties in the same publication and their descriptions seem similar – both are Victoria-like – so they could be one and the same.

There is a Jimmy Moore specimen growing in the Gloucestershire Plum Collection..