John Nash: An apple a day

An apple a day!

John Nash is a retired, well sort of retired, fruit farm manager in Kirdford who enjoys scribbling about life on the farm from the now to days gone by.

As some of you good folk know if you read my scribbles, I’ve spent a lifetime growing , talking, lecturing about… and loving apples. In fact on one particular gardening board I’ve just described my 215th apple variety. With many thousands available I have plenty of material!

However, there are a some that are of great local interest to our own patch of the country and I wondered if the history of one of them may be of interest to the fruit lovers among you.

Many apples have names that carry a story. Many of these stories are better than the fruit itself. This I believe is one such story…

This particular apple was first raised in a garden in Chatham in Kent by a Mr Jacob in 1849. The following year he moved to Petworth and brought his new tree with him. Here he set himself up in business as a ‘Sheep Doctor and Taxidermist’. (I presume he figured if he failed in the first he could always fall back on the second!)

Around 1885 he was proud enough to start showing his apple, which he had named ‘Jacobs Strawberry’.

Somehow one of the most famous nurserymen of that period, C Bunyard, saw the fruit and, expressing admiration for the red and gold colouring, he bought some scions from Mr Jacob and started to propagate a number of trees.

Now, one of Bunyard’s best customers was Lord Sudeley who lived up on his Toddington Estate in Gloucestershire. The nurseryman showed the fruit to him and Sudeley expressed an interest in the apple. Bunyard, hearing his Lordship remark that the fruit’s colour reminded him of the dress that her Ladyship wore to court promptly renamed the apple Lady Sudeley… creep!

It worked though! Lord Sudeley purchased a large amount of the variety for his collection.

His Lordship, over the years, bought around a half a million trees from Bunyard’s nurseries for his orchards and with all this fruit duly set up the Toddington Fruit Company. Lord Sudeley was an MP under Gladstone and a member of the Privy Council. Also, beside his political career, he was a Fellow of the Royal Society. Towards the end of the century, due to huge debts and massive changes in agriculture, he sadly became bankrupt in 1893, and this resulted in the loss of the family seat of Toddington Manor. Lady Sudeley – the apple –became popular for a while in the late 19th century and was grown a lot in gardens in the early 1900’s before gradually fading from the scene as it was superseded by new varieties.

It’s still available from nurseries, and being a local apple we grew a few trees on the farm and it is a pretty fruit. It crops very early and fresh off the tree eats well. But it’s one of those apples that after a few days goes soft and mushy! So it’s understandable why it has disappeared from the garden scene.

I have tried to find out what happened to our Mr Jacob and whether he spent the rest of his days at Petworth but so far no joy.

So, he has faded from history but his apple lives on, albeit with another name. Still, the story’s a good one don’t you think? John Nash

RUDGWICK FENCING

All types of fencing work undertaken FOR A FREE ON-SITE VISIT, ESTIMATE AND ADVICE

Phone Adrian Bargman Tel: 01403 823048

Email: adrianbargman@gmail.com