Organic Apple Juice and Cider
Up until the nineteen fifities, so the story is told, Coombe Farm used to provide cider for the local constabulary who would arrive in their car and carry off several flagons. Then the old apple orchard was grubbed up under government grant aid - such were the agricultural fashions of the day. Now we have replanted the orchard with 131 trees, all old varieties, cookers, eaters and cider apples with such evocative names as slap ma girdle! The trees are just starting to produce apples which we plan to press for juice and cider or cook into crumbles.
The Old Cider Press and Threshing Barn
One of the barns here on the farm is an old threshing barn with massive doors either side so the wind could blow the winnowed chaff out the door leaving clean wheat behind. Then sometime in the eighteen hundreds a sophisticated twin screw cider press was installed.
In those days agricultural labour was paid for largely in cider. Unfortunately parts of the barn's roof and walls were allowed to collapse in the early nineteen forties. The walls were constructed from cob, a mixture of stone, clay and straw which is an excellent building material but no use if allowed to get wet. And the roof was thatched from local straw.
Now we have renovated the old barn, again helped by Countryside Stewardship, building up the cob walls and putting on a new green oak and thatch roof. And when the first juice flows off the press we'll be throwing a party!
You can read more about how we now use the barn for weddings.
