Over 100 varieties of apples will be on display

Over 100 varieties of apples will be on display at the West Dean College and Gardens Apple Affair in October.

Experts will also be available to help identify any apples that are brought along.

John Nash, former fruit farmer and President of the West Sussex Fruit Group said: " It has been an ideal year for Cox apples because of the cooler temperatures.

"We’ve had a good hard, cold winter with few warm periods. The warm spells we have had in June enabled productive pollination, which is good for cell division of fruit, which makes for great apples."

Apple growers can also seek advice from the 'Apple Doctors' who can help identify disease or problems in plants.

Apples of every shape and size will also be available for visitors to taste.  Many of these have been grown in the Victorian walled kitchen garden on site.

Rosemary Moon, writer, chef and creator of an online cookery website, MoonBites, will also be demonstrating her favourite apple recipes.

West Dean House

As part of the Apple Affair West Dean House will open to the public.

The flint-faced mansion, which only opens once a year, was once home to Edward James and is now a College specialising in all aspects of arts, crafts, conservation and making.

Visitors will be able to see the three state rooms, the Old Dining Room, the Music Room, the vast Oak Reception Hall and the Old Library. All are furnished with art and antiques.

Further information

Admission to the Apple Affair is £8.00 for adults plus concessions.

The event  takes place on the 1st and 2nd October 2011 between 10.30am and 5pm. Last entry for the house is 4.30pm.

Please note, no dogs are allowed in the event or grounds during the Apple Affair, except assistance dogs.

Access to restaurant and shop to event ticket holders only.

West Dean College is situated on the A286, six miles north of Chichester and six miles south of Midhurst.
Address: West Dean College, Chichester, West Sussex, PO18 OQZ   www.westdean.org.uk

The Red Ellison's Orange is a more highly coloured sport of Ellison"s Orange and was discovered in 1948 in H.C. Selby's orchard in Walpole St. peter, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.

Red Ellison's Orange

The Fruits have a soft juicy flesh with a rich and strong aniseed flavour.

Red Ellison's Orange is a good mid season eating apple.

Uses: Desert
Parents: Female - Cox's Orange Pippin x Male - Calville Blanc
Flowers: Mid May
Picking: Mid September
Natural Storage: September - October.

The Red Ellison's Orange apple can be found growing in the orchards of Acorn Bank House, Temple Sowerby, Cumbria.
Young trees available from Adams Apples

Kidd's Orange Red is a classic English apple. Named after an amateur New Zealand apple breeder, J.H. Kidd, in the 1920s.

Kidd's Orange Red

The thin skin is yellow with a pink blush as it ripens, turning to an orange-red flush by the time it is ready for picking. Irregular light patches of russet can give it a marbled appearance.

Flesh is a cream colour, dense and firm with a sweet honey flavour.

A good garden apple but not a heavy cropper.

Uses: Desert
Parents: Cox's Orange Pippin x Red Delicious
Flowers: Mid May
Picking: October
Natural Storage: Nov-Jan

A tour around the gardens of Dalemain near Penrith, will lead you to an 18th Century walled garden containing some 30 different heritage apple varieties from the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Walled garden at Dalemain

Cooking apples include the famous, strongly acidic, Bramley as well as lesser known Howgate Wonder which produces the largest fruits of all cooking apples, Prince Albert with its juicy flesh and red flushed colouring and the Keswick Codlin with it's soft/course rather dry, acid flesh.

Newton Wonder and Charles Ross are Dual purpose apples, who's subacidic nature allows them to be used as cooking apples early in the season and mellow to eating apples in the new year. Newton Wonder is thought to be one of the best baking apples available.

Many desert apples line the boundary of the garden and the rose walk.  The famous Laxton can be found here, it's very juicy sweet flesh, reminiscent of a Cox.

The venerable 18th Century apple trees to the left of the Rose Walk still produce fruit.

One of the oldest apple varieties in the garden is Hambledon Deux Ans which is a very firm apple, coarse in texture, rather dry, slightly sweet and acidic with a feint aromatic flavour.
The Allington Pippin (again bred by Thomas Laxton) is a lovely green flushed red apple with a distinct aromatic flavour.  Lady Sudeley and The Duchess of Kent varieties are also found arching their branches over the lawns.

At the top left of the walled garden is the apple house, built as a retreat or grotto in the 16th Century, it has been used since Victorian times to store the many apples on specially built shelves.

The Dalemain apples are turned into "Country House" produce, much of which is consumed in the Mediaeval Hall Tearoom and includes such delights as Apple or Apple and Blackcurrant pie and Apple Flapjack Crumble.  Some of the fruits are turned into own recipe chutneys, who's range includes a wonderful Apricot and Apple.

Britain has the largest apple heritage in the world, with only a handful of the varieties seen for sale today but as can be seen from the collection at Dalemain, old varieties do exist all over the country with many special Apple Day events taking place each year to promote these wonderful fruits.