In Hampstead is a National Trust property with amongst many delights – a 300 year old apple orchard. Therefore it was fitting that today, the garden was hosting an Apple festival – with a dose of kiddies things and beekeeping.
According to a leaflet handed out as you entered, the orchard next to Fenton House dates back to at 300 years – if not more, and was described in 1756 as “pleasant… well planted with Fruit-Trees, and a Kitchen-Garden all inclos’d with a substantial Brick Wall”.
They have some 30 different varieties of apple grown there, and there is an ongoing program to slowly refocus the orchard on classic London varieties.
It was basically a chance to wander round, pick up a specialist apple tree (I don’t have a garden though), buy some apples (I picked up some Lord Lambourne varieties), munch on venison burgers and generally admire the garden.
The bee keepers were there, and fortunately the bees were kept in a sealed glass case. I like honey, but I am not too keen on the bees which make it.
I also picked up some apple juice bottled by the Watergull Orchard, which unlike the cartons you get in shops is not made from generic mixes of apples, but each bottle is from a specific blend or single apple variety. I find supermarket apple juice to be quite bland (and M&S is the worst), so dry apple juice should taste a lot better.
Quite a gentle Sunday wander all in, and a cake from the Women’s Institute will keep me quite happy this evening.
A few photos on my usual Flickr account (too many families around so I didn’t take lots of photos this time)
fenton house and willow both exluded from promotion it seems