Herefordshire
Cider orchardists maintaining heritage apple varieties. The wassailing tradition. Border country where English and Welsh craft traditions meet and merge.
3Subjects identified
3Traditions mapped
500+Years of cider making
Cider orchardists maintaining heritage apple varieties. The wassailing tradition. Border country where English and Welsh craft traditions meet and merge.
Herefordshire is England's cider country. The orchards here contain heritage apple varieties - Foxwhelp, Styre, Kingston Black - that exist in no commercial nursery catalogue. They survive because individual orchardists maintain them, grafting from existing trees, pressing in traditional mills, and blending by taste rather than recipe. The knowledge of which varieties to combine, when to press, how long to ferment - this is embodied knowledge that cannot be written down.
The Archive documents Herefordshire's cider orchardists as both Makers and Stewards. They make cider using traditional methods, but they also steward a living collection of genetic material - heritage apple varieties that would vanish from the earth if their orchards were grubbed up. The January wassail, performed in the orchards to bless the trees and ensure a good harvest, is a Carriers tradition that connects the orchardists to the ceremonial calendar of the region.
Makers A working hazel basket maker in Turnham Green Wood, the Herefordshire coppice he established in 2011. One of a handful of working practitioners in the country making the traditional split-hazel Whisket of the Welsh Marches - a craft on the Heritage Crafts Red List of endangered crafts. Reads the stems before cutting (the knobs, the deer marks, the years), cleaves and shaves them into splints, weaves them into round-bottomed baskets that have been made in the same shape since the form was first made. Teaches the craft at venues across the country.
The perry pear trees of Herefordshire take a generation to fruit. The families who tend them are custodians of a patience that modern agriculture has abandoned.