From the Living Museum
Devonshire Quarrenden
- Origin
- Devon, England; documented by the 17th–18th centuries
- Era
- 17th–18th c.
- Type / use
- Dessert · Fresh eating
History & Stories
One of the earliest-ripening quality dessert apples. Small-to-medium, flat-round fruit with deep red skin and crisp, juicy, refreshing sweet-tart flesh. Unique as a genuinely early apple that still offers good dessert quality rather than the usual soft, bland early types. Short storage — best eaten soon after harvest.
Folklore & Name
Very old Devon apple, documented by the 17th–18th centuries. One of the earliest quality dessert apples. Name from the county and ‘Quarrenden’, a word never explained for certain; one suggestion links it to Carentan in Normandy, but that is a guess 3.
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
Devonshire Quarrenden is one of the oldest named apples still grown in England. The UK National Fruit Collection says it was "thought to have arisen in Devon, but may have originally come from France," and was first recorded in 1678 1. Bernwode Fruit Trees identifies that 1678 record as John Worlidge's Vinetum Britannicum 3. Robert Hogg, writing in 1884, found it in The Compleat Planter and Cyderist (1690) and in John Ray (1693), and then hardly at all until his own century 2. He praised it as "a very valuable and first-rate dessert apple," ripe in early August and "particularly relished for its fine, cooling, and refreshing vinous juice." He had seen it thriving "from Devonshire to the Moray Frith" 2.
The competing accounts
- UK National Fruit Collection 1: probably a Devon apple, though possibly French in origin; first recorded in 1678.
- Robert Hogg, 1884 2: found it in print in 1690 and 1693.
- Bernwode Fruit Trees 3: identifies the 1678 record as Worlidge's Vinetum Britannicum, and repeats a suggestion that the name comes from Carentan in Normandy.
Most likely (our judgment, not a certainty): an old apple on record in England since 1678. Its birthplace, Devon or Normandy, cannot be settled from the evidence; the Carentan idea rests only on the sound of the name.
What we think: stories & traditions
A Norman name? (theory) The odd name has never been explained for certain. One suggestion, repeated by Bernwode, is that it comes from Carentan, an apple-growing district of Normandy 3. That would fit the National Fruit Collection's note that the apple may first have come from France 1, but it remains a guess based on the sound of the word.
A summer apple for 350 years. Whatever its birthplace, this was an apple people ate straight from the tree in high summer. It is pleasant to think that 17th-century gardeners enjoyed the same August crunch we do.
Sources
- UK National Fruit Collection, "Devonshire Quarrenden." www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?id=1561&fruit=apple
- Robert Hogg, The Fruit Manual, 5th ed. (London, 1884), "Devonshire Quarrenden." archive.org/details/fruitmanualguide00hoggrich/mode/2up?q=Quarrenden
- Bernwode Fruit Trees, "Apple Trees 13: Historic Varieties" (Devonshire Quarrenden; Devon Crimson Queen). bernwodefruittrees.co.uk/descriptions/apple13.htm
Curious about Devonshire Quarrenden?
Email us at drgoss@honeytreeorchard.com.