The Lost Varieties

The problem is certainly not unique to Stamford – far more apple varieties have been lost than remain in existence – and, like most things, it involves several factors.

Many old apples were bred to be kept over winter, in fact some like Allington Pippin were bland and unpalatable when first picked, developing richness and flavour only after months of careful storage. Refrigeration and mass food importation made these qualities largely redundant. Other varieties would not store at all – some spoilt within a few days, others bruised too easily for commercial production. Tydeman’s Early Worcester is an example of the former, Peasgood’s Nonsuch of the latter. Many varieties cropped biennially or even less frequently; a brilliant crop one season might be followed by a year or two of little fruit whilst the tree rested.

In order to make a profit, fruit farmers needed varieties that lent themselves to intensive cultivation; apples that cropped heavily and consistently, were robust enough to travel without bruising and could be picked unripe and kept in cold storage. As dessert apples from New Zealand and South America became available year-round consumers stopped thinking of apples as a seasonal crop to be looked forward to and lost touch with the varieties local to their area.

Meanwhile, supermarkets were responding to changes in the nation’s cooking and eating habits. As people did less home baking the demand for cooking apples fell and as sugar consumption rose, so did customers’ preference for new and extremely sweet eating apples, such as Gala and Pink Lady, instead of varieties with more complex flavours, like Ashmead's Kernel or James Grieve.

Combine all these factors with decades of declining interest in fruit and vegetable gardening and it becomes easy to see why so many old varieties fell by the wayside.