| Where: | Countrywide |
| When: | 21st October (and assorted events throughout September and October) |
| Time: | All day |
Apple Day is a festival celebrating the apple and orchards and was established during the 1990s, partly to encourage landowners to maintain their orchards and also to encourage the public to eat the produce from them. Fruit farms and farm shops as well as historic properties and community orchards all over the country organise apple and cider tastings and produce recipes made from the ever-popular fruit. Some of these will be arranged on the nearest weekend if Apple Day falls midweek, and some will be on weekends a little earlier and later in the month to fit in with other events- near us there are apple-pressing and harvesting events from early September onwards. Apple Day is particularly popular in areas where orchards have been well-established for a long time such as Somerset and Herefordshire, and where there are Community Orchards and Farmers’ Markets which have greatly increased over the last decade. John made cider at home in 2010 and it was very tasty! Notable Apple Day events include the Big Apple in Herefordshire (see separate article) and Apple Day at Borough Market in Southwark, but if they’re far away just look out for adverts locally as this custom is rapidly expanding through the whole country and there should be one near you.
Click here to find out more: https://www.commonground.org.uk/apple-day/
and https://ptes.org/campaigns/traditional-orchard-project/orchard-network/apple-day/
They were celebrating Apple Day in Borough Market, Southwark, Central London. Borough Market is fantastic, an excellent food market held under the arches and pillars of the railway. The market itself is about 1,000 years old, and does wonderful food – not just hot dogs, but wild boar hot dogs, or ostrich burgers. Various stalls were handing out slices of apple to taste, but the main performances were part of the Bankside October Plenty Festival, run by a company called the Lion’s Part. It was interesting – street theatre using folk motifs. It was a good day; and Borough Market, with or without Apple Day and October Plenty, is wonderful and well worth seeing.
Thanks Paula,
Yes Borough Market is in a league of its own – wish we lived nearer to it as we’d be there all the time! It was Apple Day and October Plenty together on the day we went as well, which was lucky as both are interesting to visit. The Lions Part also do an event just after Christmas at Twelfth Night – we went last year and though the weather was abysmal we had a lovely time!
Averil