The past two months have seen us spending our days continuing our annual work in restoring Duffryn orchard. We’ve been harvesting fruit from this stunning orchard since 2020 and each year we persuade the trees to give up a few more of their secrets. Thanks to the amazing resource that is the archives at The Museum of Cider, we have learnt that Duffryn was planted in 1934 by the Bulmer family and having looked at the records for other orchards being planted by the Bulmers at the time, the sheer amount of variety in this orchard seems to mark Duffryn out as a test bed for experimentation. A selection of French apples such as Binet Rouge, which grows high on a hulking tree too thick of trunk to fully encircle with your arms stands just along from an avenue of imposing Red Foxwhelp which produce the pinkest juice I have ever seen. These are to be found alongside a gorgeous deep red apple we think might be Cap of Liberty (although the jury is still very much out) whilst there are many, many more we’ve yet to identify.

Duffryn currently has around 100 trees but with lots of gaps where more once stood. Since that first Winter, we’ve been selecting scion wood (one year old growth) from these remaining older trees and grafting them to preserve this precious habitat. This year we’ve (finally!) gotten around to planting some of these resulting trees back into the gaps, essentially reuniting our little grafted tree babies with their mothers!

Where once upon a time standing in this beloved gnarled orchard felt like stepping back to a different age, these days as I gaze on the plantings made by orchardists of the past, now freshly punctuated by our gifts to the cider makers of the future, it makes me feel entirely, and happily, grounded in the pivotal present.