How do you like them apples?

EXPERTS from Nottingham Trent University have hatched a plan to save the UK’S oldest Bramley apple tree, which has been slowly dying for years due to an incurable infection.

The ‘mother’ of all Bramleys—so revered it has its own annual festival and a stained-glass window in Southwell Minster—was planted from a pip in 1809, by a child named Mary Ann Brailsford, in the garden of a cottage in Southwell, Nottinghamshire. The first cuttings were taken in 1856 by local nurseryman henry Merryweather—the seedling bears the name of the cottage’s then owner, Matthew Bramley. The tree has long been lovingly cared for and even survived being blown down in a storm in 1900 (it was replanted).

Now, the local university hopes to buy the entire property. ‘We want to play our part in recognising [the tree’s] importance,’ says Prof Robert Mortimer, Dean of Nottingham Trent’s School of Animal, Rural and environmental Sciences. ‘It has such huge cultural significance for the town and for Nottinghamshire, but also nationally and globally… we would like to try to preserve this great tree for the people of Southwell for as long as possible.’

The plan is for staff and students to assess and tend the tree to prolong its life and to plant grafts at the university campus. The cottage would be used for postgraduate student accommodation and the university would like to open the cottage’s rose garden to the public and develop plans to celebrate formally the history of ‘the nation’s favourite cooking apple’.