The Common Ground
Community Orchard Award
for Apple Juice or Cider

The first Common Ground Special Award for an apple juice or cider made by and from a Community Orchard or not-for-profit orchard was won by Gabriel’s Community Orchard in Pilton, Somerset, at the  2009 Bath & West Show.

Joe King, representing Gabriel’s Community Orchard was presented with a copy of Common Ground’s book “England in Particular’ by Lord Cameron of Dillington  at the award ceremony at the Orchard & Cider Tent on Thursday 28th May.

The “Fresh Apple Juice from Gabriel’s Orchard”, made from an interesting blend of Improved Lambrook Pippin and Court Royal cider apples is sold in Pilton.

The 2.4 hectare orchard in sight of Glastonbury Tor (long held to be the Isle of Avalon – the Apple Isle) overlooking the Glastonbury Festival fields, was planted in 1998 and is now producing enough fruit to be juiced. It was always the intention of the orchard group to grow fruit for cider and juice making. Cider apple trees in surrounding remnant farm orchards were identified by cider apple expert Liz Copas, grafts were taken and the trees planted in the new orchard. They made their first juice in 2007 and are clearly getting good at it.

Joe King enthused:

"2008 was the first year of Gabriel's Orchard producing apple juice for sale and we were always feeling our way. We decided on apple juice as we felt that it is easier to produce an appetizing high quality juice rather than launch into the arcane mysteries of producing decent cider. It seems easy to produce indifferent cider, but much more difficult to produce something that we could be proud of. Also we hope to involve all ages in the process in the future so juice was a natural candidate rather than produce tipsy six year olds. Our work force was of all ages but just due to the realities of safely operating the equipment there was a preponderance of adults at any one time. Our equipment came from Vigo and is all hand operated. We then heat to pasteurize the bottles before sealing them. Some apples, when we had enough of one variety, were crushed and juiced as a single variety. If the numbers were smaller we tended to blend two varieties together. All our choices were experimental, but we had great fun with our "tasting sessions". Our winning blend at the Bath & West Show was "Improved Lambrook Pippin" and "Court Royal" which produced a delicious juice. In all we produced 250 bottles for sale. We found that these sold very quickly, individuals often returning to buy twenty bottles at a time. We may well try to make a little cider next year, but we are committed to increasing our juice production.                                          

Our juice is sold within our village from one of the Managing Trustees' houses.

Looking back we learnt a lot last year and can move forward with confidence. Eventually as our annual crop of apples increases we may well send our excess apples to a local apple juice producer and we are gradually building up links with them, but we are keen that we produce as much juice as we can within the village and have fun doing so."

The purpose of the new Common Ground award is to encourage the spread of Community Orchards and to encourage people to come together to make the most of the fruit they grow.

If you have a Community Orchard, please let us know -
email info [at] commonground.org.uk.

BACK TO COMMUNITY ORCHARDS INDEX