From the Living Museum

Catshead

Origin: England; name appears in records from the 17th–18th centuries or earlier
Era: 17th–18th c. or earlier
Type / use: Culinary · Dual-purpose

Grafted, planting April 2027

Catshead: historic illustration, The Herefordshire Pomona, vol. 2, plate L, fig. 3 (Woolhope Club, 1876–85) — Illustration: Alice B. Ellis and Edith E. Bull, The Herefordshire Pomona, vol. 2, plate L, fig. 3 (Woolhope Club, 1876–85). Public domain; scan by Cornell University Library via Internet Archive (cropped). All image credits

History & Stories

Large, irregular fruit whose shape was thought to resemble a cat’s head. Old dual-purpose / culinary type. Unique mainly for its great age and the vivid, slightly humorous name that has kept it in the historical record.

Folklore & Name

Very old English name referring to the irregular, somewhat flattened shape thought to resemble a cat’s head. Appears in records from the 17th–18th centuries or earlier. Classic example of descriptive folk naming.

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

Catshead is one of England's oldest named apples. The UK National Fruit Collection says it "originated in England" and was known in the 1600s, and describes it as "a distinctly angular and somewhat ugly apple" ¹. Robert Hogg's Fruit Manual (1884) calls it among the oldest English apples and "one of our oldest and best culinary apples," always much valued for its size ². Hogg quotes John Philips's 1708 poem Cyder, which mentions "the Cat's-head's weighty orb, Enormous in its growth" ².

What we think: stories & traditions

The ploughman's dumpling. Hogg also quotes William Ellis's Modern Husbandman (18th century). Ellis said one Catshead, peeled and wrapped in pastry, made a whole apple dumpling, "so much in request with the Kentish farmer" because it "satiates the keen appetite of the hungry ploughman, both at home and in the field." Eaten with bacon or pickled pork, it had become everyday family food in Hertfordshire ². It is a rare glimpse of how ordinary farm families actually used an apple.

The name. The usual explanation is that the lumpy shape looks like a cat's head. That is a common reading of the name, not a documented origin.

Sources

UK National Fruit Collection, "Catshead." www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?id=1014&fruit=apple
Robert Hogg, The Fruit Manual, 5th ed. (London, 1884), "Catshead," pp. 41–42. archive.org/details/fruitmanualguide00hoggrich/page/41

Curious about Catshead?

Email us at drgoss@honeytreeorchard.com.