Heritage Apples

Heritage Apples - The story of Codlings, Costards and Biffins

Using items from the RHS Lindley Library collections, find out about the role apples have played in our heritage and culture

The earliest apples

There are around 50 wild species of apple in the northern hemisphere. The common apple, Malus domestica, probably originated from forests in Central Asia. Its history can be traced to 6500 BC and apples were cultivated by the Egyptians, Persians and Greeks.

Traders on the Silk Road helped to spread the fruit to Europe. It was the Romans who first developed many of the techniques for growing apples that we still know and use today. They recognised and named different varieties including the ‘Syrian Red’, ‘Honey Apple’ and ‘Decio’. These are unlikely to have survived and many varieties have appeared and disappeared throughout history. In Britain, the development of cultivars was limited until the 16th and 17th centuries. One variety from this time, the ‘Flower of Kent’, was the apple that fell on Isaac Newton’s head. It is still grown today.

Image: From a very early coloured illustration of an apple, published in the plant encyclopaedia Kreutterbuch in 1586

Myths and legends

Since the story of Adam and Eve, apples have been associated with temptation and desire. In classical Greek literature the golden apples of the Gods are forbidden fruit and the envy and downfall of mortals. In fairy tales apples tempt the innocent, like Snow White, who falls under a spell after biting an apple poisoned by her wicked stepmother.

In Norse and Celtic legends apples represent youth and immortality. When King Arthur was fatally wounded, he was taken to Avalon, the mystical Isle of Apples, where he rests in eternal sleep until England calls him again. In European and American folklore they are linked to love and fertility. Superstitions include tossing a ribbon of peel over your shoulder… it will land in the shape of your future partner’s initials.

Image: From 'Lady’s apple thou shalt be’ illustration by Arthur Rackham from A Dish of Apples, 1921 by Eden Philpotts.

An apple a day

Apples, for eating, cooking and drinking, are one of our oldest crops. The fruits were an important staple for the rural poor, keeping through winter when other fresh produce was scarce. Cider was safer than dirty drinking water and 'cyderkin', or small cider, was given to young children. Apples are also a great source of vitamins, fibre and flavonoids. They were taken on whaling ships to combat scurvy.

The Victorians so prized their eating apples, they devoted a special fruit dessert course to them, discussing their merits and flavours like fine wines. Today a renewed interest in heritage apples and unusual new cultivars has gone hand-in-hand with a revival in cider-making and traditional apple recipes, particularly chutneys, jellies and puddings.

Image: This illustration from 1678 shows cider presses being used to crush apples without damaging the pips, which contain traces of cyanide.

Clones and grafts

Apple trees can be grown from seed, from an apple pip. This process is slow and unpredictable, as new trees do not always produce the same flowers and fruits of their parent plants. The only sure way to reproduce trees of a particular variety is to take cuttings - scions - and attach them onto another tree (the rootstock) in a process called grafting. The rootstock and scion are cut to allow maximum contact between the two surfaces, and the new join is bound tightly to help the two parts grow together.

Image: An illustration from 1602 of tools for pruning and grafting; many tools for apple cultivation have remained unchanged for centuries.

Accidental apples

Some of our best-loved apples came about either by accident or lucky experimentation. The ‘Granny Smith’ cooking apple came from Australia and was discovered by Maria Smith in 1868 on the edge of a creek in New South Wales.

A fine cooking apple, ‘Bramley’s Seedling’, first emerged after Mary Brailsford planted apple cores and pips in the family’s cottage garden in Southwell, Nottingham. It was not until 1856, after the tree had already been growing and fruiting for many decades, that a local nurseryman recognised the potential appeal of the new variety and decided to grow and sell it.

Image: Any cultivar with ‘pippin’ in its name will have grown accidentally. The ‘Wyken Pippin’ grew in Coventry from a pip from an apple from Holland. ‘Wyken Pippin’ watercolour by Charles Robertson, 1821

Apple enemies

The arch-enemy of apple orchards is the codling moth. Its larvae burrow under the fruit’s skin, producing a crop of worm-eaten, maggoty apples. In the 19th century, spraying with ‘Paris Green’, an arsenic solution, was a popular remedy. Safer methods including shaking the tree to dislodge insects and damaged fruit, or placing barriers of hay rope around the base of the trunk to stop insects climbing from the ground. Modern biological controls include pheromone traps which lure male moths and nematode worms which destroy the caterpillars.

Some apple varieties are prone to fungal infections like apple canker which eats into bark, or apple scab which attacks the fruit. It’s hard to control airborne spores but keeping trees clean of old wood, decaying leaves and fallen apples reduces the risk of infection.

Image: This illustration from 1865 shows the damage caused by codling moths.

Apple collections

The first RHS apple tree collection was at the Society’s first garden in Chiswick which existed from 1823–1903. In its heyday it was the finest collection of fruit trees in Europe. After the main garden moved from Chiswick to Wisley in 1903, a new orchard was created. The National Fruit Trials were established there in 1922 and the orchard continued to expand. After the war, appeals in newspapers and on the radio also helped to add ‘lost varieties’, and new cultivars from home and abroad continued to be added. In 1952 the collection was taken over by the Ministry of Agriculture and moved to Brogdale where it can be visited today. At RHS Garden Wisley the orchard was moved and reviewed to concentrate on varieties of dessert and cooking apples that were suitable for growing in gardens rather than commercially.

Image: The Chiswick garden kept detailed records, including written notes and ‘prints’ of cut through apples

Get involved

The Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s leading gardening charity. We aim to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.