Tis the season to be
scrumping. But amid
the natural beauty of
our orchard landscapes
lurks a worrying threat
of extinction for many
of our rare apple
varieties. Country &
Border Life meets the
guardians intent on
ensuring their survival
words & location pictures | Pressed
Andrew Micah Green
n a late
September
Omorning,
fresh from an autumn
shower, a Brith Mawr apple
basks in the sunshine
beneath a rainbow. But
you won’t find ‘The Great
Speckled’ – as the name
translates – in any major
supermarket, for this is no
Pink Lady. For one, she’s
not as pretty. Her rough red
skin is scarred with long
discoloured streaks and tiny
specks. But she’s also rare.
So rare, in fact, there are
only a couple of Brith Mawr
trees in the entire world, all
grafted from a single mother
tree outside Cardiff. And
one of these is a youngster
growing happily here in the
Brecon Beacons, on Mike
Porter’s Llangynidr orchard.
It has plenty of company in
this corner of mid Wales. Mike’s
trees – a few hundred different
varieties, all within four acres –
produce some of the rarest
apples in Britain.
To prove the point, Mike
points proudly to one tree and
an odd-looking eating apple
whose skin is a muddle of pale
green, rosy pink and cinnamon
russet. “Now this one goes right
back to the 16th Century,” he
declares, “possibly even earlier.
It’s called the Herefordshire
Pomeroy – from Pomme Roi, the
King’s Apple. It’s got a dry flesh
but a very unusual flavour
which some people like and
some people don’t.” trianglert
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