Feature

Hunt for the Shaugh Red

How a simple apple has sparked a blossoming community project

Shaugh Prior community orchard, now growing in the grounds of the village hall, was initially the brainchild of local resident Peter Burkill. Though only tiny, it’s playing an important role in the work to preserve traditional local apple varieties and enhancing a sense of community and ownership in the village.

Peter said: ‘Some fi ve years ago I read a report that Bickleigh Vale - adjacent to Shaugh Prior - was, in the early 1800s, burgeoning in apple orchards. Peter Burkhill

‘These orchards were for cider, with the “Shaugh Red” apple being the main cultivar. This apple was not one I’d heard of and it set me thinking that here was an apple that was once part of our local heritage.’

Peter wanted to fi nd out more about the Shaugh Red, specifi cally was it still grown and if so, was it used for cider making? He contacted local people, particularly farmers, and read widely on local apples and orchards. ‘Both approaches drew a blank,’ he said. ‘Farmers and land owners still have orchards varying in size from a tree or two to many trees, but outside the commercial orchards, no-one know what apple cultivars they were.’ Around the same time, Shaugh Prior Village Hall committee agreed that as apples were part of the area’s heritage, they should be celebrated and in 2017 the decision was taken to turn some rough land next to the hall into an orchard. Around half a dozen cultivars were chosen for the orchard by Peter Davies, the local National Trust ranger and Shaugh Prior’s tree warden. He said he had been delighted to get involved in the orchard project and had sourced six diff erent varieties of apples, mainly traditional Tamar Valley species, which would be able to thrive in the mild, damp environment on the edge of the moor. The trees planted were Devonshire Buckland, Longkeeper, Lucombe’s Pine, Plympton Pippin, Star of Devon and Mrs Bull’s.

He explained that at the moment, the trees look as though they have been very widely spaced, but this was intentional, to give the root systems the opportunity to spread.

‘It’s only a small orchard but it will still have wildlife value, it will provide a home for lichens, and some species which are quite specifi c to certain orchards - and it also

provides a diff erent dynamic to village life,’ he said.

The same year the orchard was planted, the village held its fi rst Apple Day, supported by sponsorship from some local companies, and offi cially opened by Sarah Chesters of RHS Rosemoor.

Peter Burkill said: ‘The focus of the event was to get the children from the village primary school children involved and they were given free pasties and apple juice and a lot of the entertainment was geared to their interests - longest apple peal, largest apple, apple shies, apple juicing etc.’

Peter Davies and the National Trust staff provided an apple crusher which proved very popular. There was also a cider bar, apple-in-Art, pasties, Dartmoor Border Morris danced and an evening ceilidh was held.

Peter added: ‘It was a great community event that has continued in late October each year since. This year an Apple Wassail was also held in January.’

So what of the Shaugh Red? Have the apple enthusiasts of Shaugh Prior discovered a living specimen of this heritage tree?

Peter said: ‘This still eludes us although we have found an ancient tree below the village that may be a Shaugh Red. Who can tell? I suspect no-one can. But like “Hunting for the Snark”, we will continue to look and will keep space for one in our orchard!’ n Jane Honey

“So what of the Shaugh Red? This still eludes us although we have found an ancient tree below the village that may be a Shaugh Red. Who can tell? ”

Where have all the apple trees gone? Not so long ago Devon was a county full of orchards. Every farm would have had one and every cottage a tree or two. Some grew eating apples, some grew cookers but many more grew apples to make cider. In the Middle Ages cider, made in the ‘champagne method’, was the chosen drink of the nobility and everyone drank ‘scrumpy’- often starting with a jug for breakfast. Today most of the Plym Valley apple trees have gone. Some were dug up to make way for other crops when the price of apples dropped. Many disappeared suddenly in the mid-1990s and more again in the early 2000s when the European Union changed the regulations which gave farmers fi nancial subsidies. Why grow apples at a loss? One of the sad results of this is that the huge range of different varieties of Devon apples has diminished – very few old trees are left and no one remembers their names. Shaugh Prior was typical of Devonshire parishes. In the tithe survey of April 1842 there were 82 acres of orchards spread across the lower parts of the parish. Some farmers sold their apples locally in the village or in the markets. At least two community cider presses were in use in the parish until the 1940s; the remains of two have been found at Coldstone Farm and in the valley close to Shaugh village. Today the apple trees we know about in the parish would probably fi t into a couple of acres. We are now conducting a modern-day census of the apple trees in the parish. We are asking households to let us know if they have apple trees in their gardens or fi elds. We are interested in old trees but we also want to know about recently planted trees. To contribute to the survey of Shaugh Prior please send an e-mail with details of where you live (house name or street and number) and how many trees you have to sue.burkill@exeter.ac.uk Sue Burkill

The derelict overgrown press in the valley.