Description
A very attractive apple often used for dining table displays in Victorian time. Large fruits striped and flushed with orange and red, with white flesh and sweet flavour. Esteemed as a cooking apple, it keeps its shape when baked. Introduced in 1857 by Samuel Greatorex in Knighton St. Mary, as a seedling from Blenheim Orange. The tree is hardy, tolerant of wetter conditions, of spreading habit with attractive blossom, and is both a good cropper and a good keeper.
"The charm of the name given to this still widely available cooker derives either from the baby daughter of Samuel Greatorex, the Leicester magistrates clerk who raised it about 1857, lost at 13 months old, or from the daughters of Mr Harrison, the Leicester nurseryman who introduced it in around 1868. Widely grown in commercial orchards before the Second World War, and evidently popular in the Midlands, it was also well-loved in northern England, and appreciated everywhere it was grown for the very pretty blossom, rose-pink, veined darker red, which comes late and tolerates late spring frosts. It was a prized Exhibition apple during the Victorian period, and often presented by the Head Gardener for the table displays at the Big House. The Backhouse Nursery (1910) commended it for its crispness, '... with a brisk, sprightly flavour' (cribbing from Hogg), and notes that this excellent select keeper was ... 'good for dessert if kept till spring'. Hilary Wilson tells us that it was the favourite apple of her granny, Florence Wright, who lived in York, but also goes on to say that apples she knows in northern England look nothing like the illustrations she has seen. It is often the case that apples develop a more intense colour in northern orchards, and frequently true that neglected trees produce lots of small hard fruit. One wonders whether it was such neglect in the war years that led to its fall from grace as a commercial variety; certainly by the latter half of the 20th century it was almost exclusively grown as a garden apple. Nevertheless, it is still grown in northern collections, proving a good cropper and maintaining its reputation as an excellent keeper: Beware of its tendency to drop its weighty fruit as soon as it is ripe — before you've had chance to pick it — especially in the face of winds. Excellent for coddled or stewed apples, and keeps its shape when baked, needing little additional sugar. High dry matter well suited to dishes such as Apple Charlotte." © Lin Hawthorne - 'The Northern Pomona'
For help with choosing the correct rootstock for your needs, please click here A Guide to Rootstocks
For help with choosing the correct size and shape, please click here A Guide to Fruit Tree Shapes
