From the Living Museum
Yarlington Mill
- Origin
- Yarlington, near North Cadbury, Somerset, England
- Era
- Known by 1903
- Type / use
- Cider (Bittersweet)
History & Stories
Classic West Country bittersweet cider apple, widely planted for traditional English cider. High sugar and tannin. Unique as one of the most important and reliable bittersweet varieties in the modern English cider revival.
Folklore & Name
Somerset English bittersweet. One of the most important and widely planted varieties in the modern English cider revival. Named for the mill at Yarlington, Somerset, where it is said to have been found growing from a wall 1,2.
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
The UK National Fruit Collection says Yarlington Mill "originated in the village of Yarlington, in the North Cadbury area of Somerset," and that it tends to crop heavily only every other year unless pruned regularly 1. The cider historian Darlene Hayes found it discussed at a local cider conference in 1903: "Yarlington Mill was another apple very highly spoken of … a very vigorous grower," reported The Shepton Mallet Journal 2. The National Fruit and Cider Institute grafted it into its test orchards, and one researcher judged it "not brisk enough for use alone, but of first-rate quality for blending" 2.
What we think: stories & traditions
The tree in the mill wall (tradition). "As the story goes," writes Hayes, the apple "was discovered by Edward Bartlett growing out of a stone wall near the point where the water left the mill to rejoin the river." His father William had bought the village mill in the late 1870s. The tree was dug up and replanted, possibly on the mill property or at the family farm in nearby Galhampton 2. It's easy to picture: a scrappy seedling clinging to wet stone by the millrace, rescued by the miller's son.
Why "Jersey"? Its full name is sometimes given as Yarlington Mill Jersey. Hayes notes two theories for the "Jersey" group of Somerset apples: a dialect word, jaisy, said to mean bitter, or ancestry from the island of Jersey. She treats both as unproven 2.
Sources
- UK National Fruit Collection, "Yarlington Mill." www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?id=6962&fruit=apple
- Darlene Hayes, "Yarlington Mill: A Scrappy, yet Prolific, English Apple," Cidercraft (7 November 2022). cidercraftmag.com/apple-tales-yarlington-mill/
Curious about Yarlington Mill?
Email us at drgoss@honeytreeorchard.com.