Orchards, Trees & Orchard Produce

Some Buckinghamshire Fruit

Dessert Apples
Ball’s Pippin introduced 1923 by nurseryman JC Allgrove of Langley. Cox’s Orange Pippin was planted as a pip from a Ribston Pippin x Blenheim Orange in 1825 by Richard Cox of Colnbrook and introduced by Small & Son in 1840. Now three-quarters of all dessert fruit commercially grown in this country are Cox. The original tree, which grew in Cox’s garden, blew down in a gale in 1911. Difficult to grow – it is very susceptible to mildew. It likes well-drained soils and doesn’t thrive north of a line from Birmingham to the Wash. Feltham Beauty raised at Veitch Nursery, Langley, described 1908. Langley Pippin raised by the family firm of James Veitch, a Chelsea nurserymen in the late 1800s. Veitch’s son opened a nursery at Langley, near Slough – hence the name.

Cooking Apples
Arthur Turner raised by Charles Turner of Slough and first exhibited in 1912. Small’s Admirable raised in about 1859 by Mr F Small, nurseryman at Colnbrook, Slough.

Dual Purpose Apples
Cox’s Pomona raised by Richard Cox, Colnbrook Lawn, Slough around 1825, at the same time as Cox’s Orange Pippin.

Damson
Aylesbury Prune once the staple of a local jam making industry in the area Aylesbury, and into Bucks around Totternhoe and Eaton Bray, along the upper greensand belt. It has also been suggested the skins were used to dye RAF uniforms during and after WWII, and hats from the Luton hat trade. Still found in remnant orchards and hedgerows.

Plum
Allgrove’s Superb, Bullace Langley.

Cherries
Prestwood Black, black cherries known locally as Chuggies.

This list was compiled using many sources including The New Book of Apples by Joan Morgan and Alison Richards (Ebury Press 2002).

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