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On the hunt with Hampshire's 'apple detectives'

BBC Baskets full of red and yellow applesBBC
An operation is under way to find rare and forgotten heritage apple varieties

A wanted list has been drawn up - Lord Roberts, Sir Benjamin Baker, Edith and Sir Douglas Haig.

A team of investigators is working night and day to identify the suspects across Hampshire.

The targets? Apples.

Radio Solent's Rose Lyle finds out how the "apple detectives" are on the hunt for rare and forgotten heritage varieties of the fruit.

A handful of British varieties can usually be found on most supermarkets' shelves but probably not a Bramshot Rectory, from Liphook, or a Beauty of Hampshire, grown in Southampton.

The county has a large number of cultivars - plants produced by breeding, many of which have been rescued from the brink of obscurity.

"We've been actually undertaking a nearly eight-year project to fill in the gaps with our national collections," said Chris Bird, curator of the National Plant Collection of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Apples Pre-1960, at Sparsholt College.

A man with white hair and a white and grey beard stands among apple trees. He is holding gardening gloves in one hand and an apple in the other. He is wearing a dark jacket and a bright blue shirt underneath with a lanyard around his neck.
Chris 'Mr Apple' Bird is spearheading the search

Fondly known to his colleagues and students as Mr Apple, Bird said, while many English apples were designed and bred at a time before fridges and freezers, there was a "complete continuum of apple supply" today.

"Some cultivars now are ready at the end of July and then, with storage, you can actually run all the way through until the following May," he said.

October and November are the best months for harvesting the fruit to then ripen, the curator explained, adding that many were "never designed to be ready and palatable until Easter".

The Easter Orange variety, introduced in 1897 by Hillier and Sons of Winchester, was specifically designed to provide fresh fruit well past the main autumn harvest.

"It's a piece of living history," said Bird.

"Also in collections there's one called Cat's Head, which was very common in Tudor times, so it's amazing to think you're actually then sampling tastes and textures that people have used in that period in history."

A red apple hangs from a tree.
Sir John Thornycroft apples from the Isle of Wight are among the county's rich apple heritage

Many of the cultivars across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight have been "surprisingly resilient", he said.

"Some of the plants we've got here have really heavy crops, considering the weather patterns we've had, but also their local history, they've been bred to suit the soils and suit the climate of the area, so it's fantastic to preserve them.

"The range of tastes is absolutely superb and a lot of people don't appreciate the tastes and textures that are available."

Hampshire heritage varieties include Sir John Thornycroft, bred by Lady Thornycroft in the 1930s and named after her husband.

Bembridge on the Isle of Wight was a "real hot bed of apple breeding", said Bird, adding that Lady Thornycroft worked closely with her head gardener there, Mr Collister.

"There's a lovely set from that area," he said. "Not a Thornycroft one but another one which has actually been in the Guinness Book of Records for having the largest single fruit at one time, which is 2.2lbs."

The detective work to fill the gaps in the national collection continues, said Bird, with the team still to track down three of Lady Thornycroft's lost varieties.

"And around the Southampton area, there's the famous Bassett Beauty, which we're trying to hunt down."

A man with long brown hair is facing the camera, one arm leaning on an apple press. He is wearing black jeans, a dark green sweatshirt and a navy blue baseball cap. He has a short dark beard, Behind him can be seen apple trees.
Mac Ince's passion for the fruit began in his 20s

Mac Ince, from the Sholing Valleys Study Centre in Southampton, has also joined the hunt for forgotten apples in orchards and gardens.

He said his passion for apples began in his 20s, when he and his father would press the fruit to make juice before turning it into cider.

"To me, it's so connected to family and connected to community," he said.

"In this country, we're quite good at being amateur enthusiasts about stuff.

"Back in the 1800s, there were a lot of people that were very interested in horticulture and were creating all of these unique apples that they were grafting from the new branches and trying to cultivate these special ones.

"A lot of these very strange apples popped up and then you have beautiful names, like Beauty of Hampshire.

"I know there are some that you only get on the Isle of Wight, there are some that you only get in Kent, but it would be really nice to be connected to that history of that apple."

Hampshire's lost harvest