Wassailing the village orchards

The village celebrated a new apple season with a traditional Wassail. Evil spirits were driven away from the trees with gunfire, Robins, the good spirits of the orchards, were tempted to feed in the orchard with bread dipped in cider and hung on branches, the trees were woken up from their winter sleep by beating their trunks and feeding their roots with cider, and everyone celebrated with lambswool, a warmed drink of cider and cooked apple. As each year, the Armaleggan dancers were the highlight of the festivities.

Have a look at Andrew Trythall's fabulous photos of the day

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/169NizbFqs/

Our Paralympian Paradice Gold

One new variety added to the village this winter is Paradice Gold. In 2012 it was chosen by the Paralympic Legacy as a new apple to be planted in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. 

We have chosen this variety to celebrate the success of our own rowing Paralympian, Frankie Allen. She won gold in the Paris Paralympics in 2024 and at just 22 is already a 3 times World Champion in the PR3 Mix4 (far right in the photo).

Does Brightwell cum Sotwell have more varieties than any other village?

The new trees have arrived. Last year the Orchard Group gave 15 apple and pears trees to villagers who wanted to add to the heritage varieties already in the village. The project was so successful we decided to do it again!

The trees are bare root from Frank P Matthews of Worcestershire who have been growing trees since 1901. The trees have been "heeled in" in Paul's garden ready for planting in the new year.

With these trees we now have 108 different varieties of apple in the village!

Apple Day was a great success

What an extraordinary day! Apple Day was a huge success and clearly visitors were having a really good time. A group cycled from Reading in the early rain, and we had over 400 visitors from as far away as High Wycombe, Aylesbury, Reading and Oxford as well as all our local villages. We even had a slot on Radio Oxford.

The sun shone for our tours of the Community Orchard, cider and apple tasting, juice pressing and cakes. The star attraction was Paul Chilton’s display of 108 heritage varieties of apple. Make sure you come next year!

Fine foods and drink

We'd like to thank our fine food friends who were selling their delicious food and drink. Pickles Produce make pasteurised apple and pear juice using fruit from their very old orchard in local Harwell. Womersley brought their small batch award-winning fruit and herb vinegars, the most popular being their stand out cider vinegar.

Jessie's Coffee Truck provided barista coffee to go with all the apple cakes and bakes. Thank goodness!

Thank you for your apples

 We'd like to thank our industrious picking teams and the orchard owners who kindly allowed us full access to their apples. Apple Day wouldn't be possible without them.

The cake stall at Apple Day is legendary

Tart or pie, muffin or cupcake, crumble or baked, frangipane or strudel, flapjack or feuille - you will certainly find your favourite - and they are all made with apple. Oh, and there is an apple chocolate fountain as well! Enjoy them all with a freshly ground coffee from Jessie's coffee truck.

The Brightwell cum Sotwell Apple Day is Saturday 12 October 12pm-4pm at the recreation ground, Mackney Lane OX10 0SQ. Street parking only. FREE.