Stamford Apple Day proves a-peel-ing
Hundreds enjoyed Stamford’s 16th annual Apple Day on Saturday.
The event at Stamford arts centre in St Mary’s Street was also boosted by apple experts from both the UK and mainland Europe.
Adam Cade, Chairman of the Stamford Community Orchard Group, said”We had just under 1,000 people turning up. The event was very popular. It was bigger and better than ever.
“We had talks from European orchard specialists from Poland, Hungary and Germany as part of their European Core Traditional orchard Project.
“They have partners in this country and they talked about traditional orchards in their countries.”
At the event, visitors were invited to bring their own apples in for identification and Adam said many new apples were identified by the east of England Apple and orchard Project.
The Apple Day also saw the Stamford Community Orchard Group launch a guide to apples and orchards, which gives advice to those wanting to set up their own orchards and follows the group receiving a lottery grant to produce the book.
The group also displayed 300 different varieties of apple, including some apples from their continental visitors.
In addition, six varieties of apples from the old Brown’s nursery in Stamford were also on show.
Adam continued: “There were many young families who came. They did apple pressing and took the juice away for free. We had many children’s activities as we were keen to attract young families.
“We also had some excellent stallholders selling and promoting sustainable Stamford as well as a range of apple and orchard-related products including cider, apples and honey.”
He added: “It was a great food and drink festival with a bit of Stamford but also a European context.”
Stamford Community orchard group has operated for 16 years and operates a community orchard at Christ Church, which is open for people to visit.
Its next main event is a wassail at the community orchard on Saturday January 4 2020.
If anyone wants to join the group, they can email Adam at scogchair@gmail.com.
Pictures by David Pearson
