The Malvern Showground
Worcestershire
WR13 6NW UK
Tel: 01684 584900

Bookmark and Share


Valid XHTML Valid CSS

Television Gardener Plants Bicentenary Tree

Chris BeardshawAward-winning garden designer and broadcaster, Chris Beardshaw, is to plant a young Bramley Apple tree at the Malvern Showground in Worcestershire, in celebration of 200 years of Britain’s best loved cooking apple.

The Bramley Apple Campaign is at this weekend’s Malvern Autumn Show (26 & 27 September) to promote its bicentenary, and event organizer, the Three Counties Agricultural Society, is incorporating the ‘cook’s choice’ into its commercial fruit juice class.

It’s also running a Bramley Apple Bramlicious competition for children to create either a Bramley Apple and Yoghurt Fool or a Bramley Apple crumble, using recipes from the Bramley Apples web site: www.bramleyapples.co.uk

Chris will be planting the tree by the Society’s Learning Garden on Thursday 24 September, as a more permanent reminder of the fruit’s long history and universal popularity.

Malvern’s Bramley will be supplied by Trees For Life - Frank P. Matthews Ltd of Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire. Stephanie Dunn of Trees For Life and Dr. Jonathan Blackman, TCAS Chief Steward, Apple and Pears, will join Chris for the ceremony.

It was in 1809 when a young girl, Mary Ann Brailsford planted some pips in her garden in Southwell, Nottinghamshire. Little did she know that a few years later those pips would grow into a tree bearing fruit that became known as Bramley’s seedling.

Cultivated by a local nurseryman, Henry Merryweather, the apple was named after Matthew Bramley, who by then owned the tree. The original Bramley tree still stands and every Bramley apple sold today is a direct descendant of that first crop of fruit.

The Bramley is grown only in Britain, and is recognised by those in the know as the best apple for cooking, which is why it is loved by professional chefs and enthusiastic home cooks alike.

There’s a huge diversity of apple varieties available with individual flavours imparted by their growing locality, and there will be a wonderful array of deliciously fresh fruit on display in the apples, pears and fruit juice section at the Malvern Autumn Show.

Entries have been coming in from commercial growers all over the South West, Central & West of England.

To celebrate the bicentenary, producers in the mixed juice class have been tasked with including Bramley, and there’s also a special prize for the winner of the 2009 Bramley section.

The Malvern Autumn Show includes The Good Life Pavilion with edible gardens and a cookery theatre, an RHS Flower Show, a big Harvest Pavilion with giant vegetables, floral art displays, a menagerie of animals, countryside pursuits and pastimes, and vintage caravans and mowers.

Chris Beardshaw will also be talking to Show visitors at Malvern on Sunday 27 September, in the Good Life Pavilion.

The Chris Beardshaw Mentoring Scholarship, sponsored by Bradstone, Scholar’s Garden – created by Paul Hervey-Brookes – will also be on display in the Pavilion, and will be judged by the Royal Horticultural Society.

The Malvern Autumn Show takes place at the Malvern Showground in Worcestershire on Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 September 2009. There’s plenty of free parking and discounts for children (under 5’s free), families and groups.

For more information and interview opportunities, please contact:

Sharon Gilbert – Press & PR Manager
Three Counties Agricultural Society
Telephone: 01684 584929 (direct dial)
E-mail: sharon@threecounties.co.uk

Show Web Site and Box Office: www.threecounties.co.uk/malvernautumn
Ticket Hotline: +44 (0) 1684 584 900/924

This press release is available by e-mail and via RSS feed.

Released: 21/09/2009