From the Living Museum
Ribston Pippin
- Origin
- Ribston Hall, Yorkshire, England, between about 1688 and 1707 (seed said to have come from Rouen)
- Era
- c. 1688–1707
- Type / use
- Dessert
From the ArchiveFilm
Watch its story
As High as the Bank of England
A short narrated history of Ribston Pippin, told through the archive illustrations of our apple collection.
Illustrations: Royal Charles Steadman (1917) and Deborah Griscom Passmore (1904), USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection, National Agricultural Library (public domain). Narrated with a synthetic voice.
Watch on YouTubeHistory & Stories
Classic English dessert apple and important parent of Cox’s Orange Pippin and others. Medium fruit with heavy russet and red flush; intensely aromatic, complex sweet-sharp flesh of the highest order. Unique for its foundational role in English pomology and the depth of its flavor. Scab-susceptible but still revered.
Folklore & Name
Raised at Ribston Hall, Yorkshire, between about 1688 and 1707 (seed said to have come from Rouen) 1,2. Classic English dessert apple and important parent of Cox’s Orange Pippin. Foundational variety in English pomology.
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
Ribston Pippin comes from Ribston Hall, near Knaresborough in Yorkshire. The UK National Fruit Collection says it was raised there "from seed brought from Rouen, and planted in about 1707" 1. Robert Hogg's Fruit Manual (1884) was more cautious: how the first tree came to be in the garden "has not been satisfactorily ascertained," though "one account states that about the year 1688 some apple pips were brought from Rouen and sown at Ribston Hall" 2.
Hogg traced its rise through the records of London's Brompton Park Nursery: absent in 1770, about twenty-five trees in 1785, five rows by 1794, and some 2,500 trees a year by 1847 2. The original tree blew down in a gale in 1810, was propped up, and went on bearing until it finally died in 1835 2. Hogg said it was "an apple so well known as to require neither description nor encomium" 2.
The competing accounts
- Robert Hogg, 1884 2: how it reached the garden was never satisfactorily established; one account has pips from Rouen sown at Ribston Hall about 1688.
- UK National Fruit Collection 1: raised from Rouen seed planted about 1707.
Most likely (our judgment, not a certainty): a seedling raised at Ribston Hall between about 1688 and 1707, perhaps from French seed. Both accounts agree on the place; the Rouen link is a tradition, and the date can't be pinned down.
What we think: stories & traditions
French pips in a Yorkshire park (tradition). The Rouen story is the one everyone tells: a few pips carried home from Normandy, sown in the park, and one seedling that changed English apple growing 1,2. Hogg treats it as "one account," so we do too. The dates differ, 1688 in Hogg and about 1707 in the National Fruit Collection, which shows how uncertain the details are 1,2.
Parent of Cox? (tradition) Hogg says Cox's Orange Pippin "is said to have been from a pip of Ribston Pippin" 3. "Said to" is the important phrase, but it would make Ribston the grandparent of half the dessert apples in England.
Sources
- UK National Fruit Collection, "Ribston Pippin." www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?id=5351&fruit=apple
- Robert Hogg, The Fruit Manual, 5th ed. (London, 1884), "Ribston Pippin." archive.org/details/fruitmanualguide00hoggrich/mode/2up?q=Ribston+Pippin
- 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 Ribston Pippin?
Email us at drgoss@honeytreeorchard.com.