Description
Famous old English apple, discovered by Bess Pool in the early 1700s in a Nottinghamshire wood. The fruit achieved local fame for outstanding flavour and was taken up by a local nurseryman: JR Pearson of Chilwell. Large oblong flat-sided fruit with a beautiful crimson flush - the flesh is rich and sweet, though tender and rather crumbly to modern tastes. Can be shy to crop - dust with sulphate of potash every spring.
"The tale of Bess Pool, who first discovered this eponymous apple in a Nottinghamshire wood in the early 1700s, has all the facets we have come to love about the oral history of an apple and its passage through generations. The first record of it is in 1824. As told by Hogg, the following story did not appear in print until 1884, by which time it had been enjoyed by three generations of the family who introduced the apple. Nurseryman J. R. Pearson, of Chilwell in Nottinghamshire wrote to Hogg in 1869, thus:
"My father became so in love with the Bess Pool that he planted it largely. He used to tell how a girl named Bess Pool found in a wood the seedling tree full of ripe fruit; how, showing the apples in her father's house - he kept a village inn — the tree became known and my grandfather procured grafts. He would then show the seven first-planted trees of the kind in one of our nurseries; tell how Loudon had been to see them and given an account of them in his Gardener’s Magazine; make his visitors try to clasp round their boles, and measure the space covered by their branches. he would then boast how, one season, when apples were very scarce, the fruit of these trees was sold at 7s. bd. a peck, and made £70, or an average of £10 a tree."
Mr Pearson the younger's sad footnote has a modern ring: Before the duty on foreign apples was taken off, it would fetch 5s a peck, now [in 1869], l am selling it at 1s. the peck. Bess Pool was widely grown for market during the Victorian period, and was taken up by Head Gardeners of the time, being so very attractive for table decorations. It is still found in old gardens and orchards in the north and Midlands, but now grown solely as a home orchard and garden apple. It is as well to warn that, though of rich flavour, its tender flesh and dry crumbly texture does not suit every modern palate, and it becomes softer yet in store.
Nevertheless, it has its supporters in Yorkshire; the pretty blossom comes late and is tolerant of late spring frosts and some growers claim that it grows crisper in the cooler regions; perhaps we set too late a season on it." © 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
