A-peel-ing event will add weight to core business

Glamis Castle staff want to teach us about variety of apples produced in their orchards

Apple lovers have the chance to get their teeth into a special event at Glamis Castle next month after a bumper annual crop at the Angus landmark.

With its own orchard and dozens of apple trees across the expansive castle grounds, Glamis is playing its part in securing the future of heritage varieties among old favourites that have now been lost.

It is also encouraging visitors to dip into the diversity which exists beyond the familiar supermarket favourites.

During sessions in the first two weeks in October, visitors to the family seat of the Earls of Strathmore of Kinghorne will have the opportunity to learn about the many varieties grown there, as well as tasting and pressing specimens, including the castle’s own apple, the Tower of Glamis.

Head gardener Des Cotton will lead the events on the Wednesday and Friday of the first two weeks in October.

“At Glamis, we have more than 20 varieties of apple tree, most of them of Scottish origin,” he said.

“The Glamis fruit trees bear apples with intriguing names including the Bloody Ploughman, Scotch Dumpling and James Grieve, each with their own special story of origin.

“There were thousands of varieties of heritage apples across Britain and many of them were lost.

“We have trees throughout the estate, and our Glamis orchard is around 10 to 15 years old, which is part of the renovations carried out to the gardens.

“One of the varieties is the Tower of Glamis – a cooking apple.

“It does cook down really well and we have been known to make our own apple pies here at the castle with it.

“It was developed around 100 years ago and although it might not have been specifically done at Glamis, what happened quite often was that a local landmark would be selected and the apple would take the name of it.”

Different varieties were often developed through cross pollination from seedlings and if apples were found to have a distinctive flavour or colour, they would be given their own name.

“There is now a big following for heritage apples across Britain so we hope people may be interested to find out more about them and taste some of those we have here at Glamis.”

Pictures: Kris Miller. Glamis Castle has enjoyed a bumper apple season and is hosting events in which the public can go along to in order to learn about the varieties in the castle grounds and orchard. Head gardener Des Cotton will lead the events.