From the Living Museum
Cox's Orange Pippin
- Origin
- Raised by Richard Cox at Colnbrook Lawn on the Buckinghamshire/Berkshire border around 1825, from a seed of Ribston Pippin
- Era
- c. 1825
- Type / use
- Dessert
From the ArchiveFilm
Watch its story
The Brewer’s Seedling
A short narrated history of Cox's Orange Pippin, told through the archive illustrations of our apple collection.
Illustrations: Deborah Griscom Passmore (1905 and 1907), USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection, National Agricultural Library (public domain). Narrated with a synthetic voice.
Watch on YouTubeHistory & Stories
The definitive English dessert apple and parent of countless later varieties. Medium fruit with orange-red flush over yellow; intensely aromatic, complex sweet-sharp flesh with notes of citrus, pear, and spice. Unique for the sheer perfection of its flavor when well-grown and for its enormous influence on subsequent apple breeding. Highly scab- and canker-susceptible, which is why it is now more of a connoisseur’s and heritage variety than a commercial one.
Folklore & Name
Raised by Richard Cox from a Ribston Pippin seed around 1825. Became the definitive English dessert apple and parent of many later varieties. The name simply honors its raiser; the flavor set the standard for aromatic English apples.
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
Cox's Orange Pippin was raised by a retired brewer in his garden near Slough. The UK National Fruit Collection says it was "raised in about 1825 by Richard Cox at Colnbrook Lawn, Slough, Buckinghamshire and introduced by Charles Turner in about 1850" 1. Robert Hogg's Fruit Manual (1884) adds that Mr. Cox "was formerly a brewer at Bermondsey, and who retired to Colnbrook Lawn, where he devoted the remaining years of his life to gardening pursuits." Hogg dates the apple to 1830 and calls it "one of the best dessert apples" 2. The National Fruit Collection lists Ribston Pippin as its seed parent 1.
The competing accounts
- UK National Fruit Collection 1: Richard Cox raised it around 1825 in his garden near Slough; introduced about 1850 by Charles Turner; Ribston Pippin listed as the seed parent.
- Robert Hogg, 1884 2: dates it to 1830 and says only that it "is said to have been from a pip of Ribston Pippin."
Most likely (our judgment, not a certainty): raised by Cox between about 1825 and 1830 from a Ribston Pippin seed. Both sources agree on the raiser and the place. The five-year gap reflects loose record-keeping, and the Ribston parentage is accepted by the national collection, while Hogg reported it only as hearsay.
What we think: stories & traditions
A Ribston pip? (tradition) Hogg wrote that the apple "is said to have been from a pip of Ribston Pippin" 2. The National Fruit Collection records Ribston as a parent 1, but there is no surviving record of exactly which pip Cox sowed. Pollen came from an unknown tree.
A retirement hobby. It is a lovely picture: a London brewer, retired to the country, filling his garden with seedlings to see what they would do. The two dates, about 1825 and 1830, show how loosely these beginnings were recorded 1,2. The apple he raised went on to become the standard by which English dessert apples are judged.
Sources
- UK National Fruit Collection, "Cox's Orange Pippin." www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?id=1330&fruit=apple
- Robert Hogg, The Fruit Manual, 5th ed. (London, 1884), "Cox's Orange Pippin." archive.org/details/fruitmanualguide00hoggrich/mode/2up?q=Cox%27s+Orange
Curious about Cox's Orange Pippin?
Email us at drgoss@honeytreeorchard.com.