Clumber Park: How National Trust's country park is keeping rare varieties of apples alive

Now cuttings from heritage trees at Clumber Park are to be shared to preserve their future. Gardeners here are leading a project to save snippings to grow elsewhere.

There are collectors of cuttings that will keep the trees, saving their DNA and helping it prosper. For Clumber’s cuttings, near Worksop, they are making their way to cooler climes.

Apples don’t always thrive in the milder winters that much of the Midlands sees at present, gardeners said, and by sharing their cuttings further afield it can safeguard their future.

Dale Iles is senior gardener. “As they say, ‘you can’t keep all your eggs in one basket’,” he said. “The varieties need to go far and wide for a better sense of survival.”

Here at the National Trust’s Grade I listed park at Clumber, the walled kitchen garden houses a national collection of older apple varieties which is specific to the Midlands.

There are 114 varieties in all grown here, including Nottinghamshire’s own Bramley Apple.

It’s also home to the Flower of Kent Apple, grown on a tree which was cloned from one in Isaac Newton’s garden at Woolsthorpe Manor which is so famous from his theory of gravity.

The collection also includes lesser-known apple varieties such as Sisson’s Worksop Newton, which originated in an orchard that has long since disappeared but was once just a short distance from Clumber Park.

It is heritage varieties like this, and local apples such as the Askham Pippin and Markham Pippin, that, while tasty, aren’t quite as suited to modern food production.

“The preservation of heritage varieties of apples is really important, otherwise there is the danger they could die out forever,” said Mr Iles.

“Many heritage varieties have fallen out of favour with the supermarkets,” he explained.

“They buy apples that travel easily, are less likely to bruise, and have a longer shelf life, which means that they often buy from overseas.

“Heritage apples cultivated locally are often more flavoursome, but they aren’t as commercial,” he added.

Each year the small team of gardeners, supported by 84 volunteers, take care of Clumber Park’s orchards and its walled garden. There’s Apple Day celebrations in autumn, and Blossom Week in spring.

Many of these varieties are in danger of disappearing and it’s up to specialist collections like Clumber Park’s, said Mr Iles, to keep the tastes of the past alive.

“The heritage varieties in our care have developed and adapted for the micro-climate in this area, but if changes occur in the climate or the environment and stop the apples from thriving then their future is at risk,” he said.

“Our role as horticulturalists is to work with other organisations to safeguard the future of these varieties or they will be lost for the future.”