From the Living Museum
Blenheim Orange
- Origin
- Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England; found by Mr Kempster in a cottage garden beside Blenheim Park around 1740
- Era
- c. 1740
- Type / use
- Dual-purpose
From the ArchiveFilm
Watch its story
Kempster’s Pippin
A short narrated history of Blenheim Orange, told through the archive illustrations of our apple collection.
Illustrations: Bertha Heiges (1901) and Mary Daisy Arnold (1931), USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection, National Agricultural Library (public domain). Narrated with a synthetic voice.
Watch on YouTubeHistory & Stories
Large dual-purpose fruit with yellow skin, orange-red flush, and russet. Firm, aromatic, sweet-sharp flesh excellent both for dessert and for cooking (holds its shape). Unique historical association with one of England’s greatest estates and its status as a classic large English dual-purpose apple. Triploid and vigorous.
Folklore & Name
Found around 1740 by Mr Kempster in his garden at Woodstock, just outside the wall of Blenheim Park, and named after the palace; locals long called it Kempster's Pippin 1,2. Association with one of England’s greatest estates gives it historical prestige.
Digging into the History
Below my own notes, here is what the old fruit books and today’s collections record about this apple, kept apart from the stories people tell.
What we know
Blenheim Orange was found in the town of Woodstock, Oxfordshire, beside the park of Blenheim Palace. The UK National Fruit Collection says it was "discovered by Mr Kempster at Woodstock near Blenheim" in about 1740, distributed in about 1818, and awarded the Banksian medal by the Horticultural Society in 1822 1. Robert Hogg's Fruit Manual (1884) says it "received its name from Blenheim, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, which is in the immediate neighbourhood," and was not grown in the London nurseries until about 1818 2. Hogg noted that the trees were slow to come into bearing, but older ones gave heavy, regular crops 2.
The competing accounts
- UK National Fruit Collection 1: found by Mr Kempster at Woodstock, near Blenheim, about 1740; distributed about 1818.
- Robert Hogg, 1884 2: named after Blenheim Palace next door; quoting the Gardeners' Chronicle, he puts the original tree in a cottage garden just outside the park wall, where locals called it Kempster's Pippin.
Most likely (our judgment, not a certainty): a seedling from Kempster's garden in Woodstock, outside the park rather than inside it, around 1740. Both sources agree, and Hogg's account rests on local memory of the original tree.
What we think: stories & traditions
Kempster's tree. Hogg reprints a wonderful account from the Gardeners' Chronicle. "Within ten yards of the wall of Blenheim Park" stood the dead shell of the original tree, ten feet high, propped against the garden wall of old Grimmett, a basket-maker. Grimmett remembered it as a boy, a fine tree in full bearing, when "thousands thronged from all parts to gaze on its ruddy, ripening, orange burden" and gardeners came each spring for grafts. The man who planted the pip, Kempster, was "a plain, practical, labouring man" who kept bees and flowers in his narrow cottage garden. Locals still called the apple "Kempster's Pippin" 2.
It is one of the most touching stories in English pomology: a working man's seedling, named for the palace next door, but remembered in Woodstock by his own name. The Victorian writer's tone is romantic, so read it as a fond local memory rather than a precise record.
Sources
- UK National Fruit Collection, "Blenheim Orange." www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?id=625&fruit=apple
- Robert Hogg, The Fruit Manual, 5th ed. (London, 1884), "Blenheim Pippin," pp. 24–25 (quoting the Gardeners' Chronicle). archive.org/details/fruitmanualguide00hoggrich/page/24
Curious about Blenheim Orange?
Email us at drgoss@honeytreeorchard.com.