Woodredding Farm Cider

Woodredding Farm in the village of Yatton in south Herefordshire is right in the heart of cider and perry country.

Cider has been made there for at least 200 years. When the owners of Woodredding Farm built the new farmhouse and barns in 1815 they also invested in new cider-making equipment.

The design of the single screw Cider Press dates it between 1790 and 1820 and the barn housing the horse-driven Cider Mill might well have been built around it and possibly precedes the present farm house and brick barns.

The custom of farmworkers receiving part of their wages as cider ended in the nineteenth century but the postman was still popping down the cellar for a horn of cider in the middle of the twentieth century.

Each autumn after harvest the cider apples were collected and taken to Bulmers and in later years to Westons’ Cider Mill.

Fran Robbins, who was born there, and her husband Brian moved back to Woodredding in 1994 and in 2007 they revived the tradition of cider making on the farm.

The 18th Century cider press, which hadn’t been used since the 1950s when the last horses left the farm, was brought back into action. The only expenditure was on a new metal plate to attach the screw to the cross board. Apart from that it

was a case of levelling the stone pressing base, oiling the screw and the press was working again.

They collected twenty two bags of apples from the orchard and the pressing produced 170 litres which they fermented in a plastic barrel and allowed to mature over the winter.

In May 2008 they took it to Pershore College where Richard Toft filtered and bottled it they came away with two hundred and thirty one bottles of slightly sparkling dry cider.

This first effort proved popular with family and friends encouraged them to increase production.

Using information gleaned from Peter Mitchell’s cider making course they adopted a more controlled approach and planned the pressings to give them a range of ciders and also a trial run of perry with pears from an old tree in Kilcot.

The present cider orchard was planted in 1959 by Bulmers with Bulmer’s Norman, Michelin, Vilberie and Lavigne varieties and Yarlington Mill and Dabinet trees were added later.

Some of the trees are coming to the end of their productive life and as they have died they have been replaced with Kingston Black, Yarlington Mill, Herefordshire Redstreak, Somerset Redstreak, Dabinet and Michelin varieties. These will enhance the current varieties and give more scope for single variety production and blending.

In November 2009 they planted the first eight trees of the Woodredding Heritage Orchard, in celebration of the birth of four grandsons during that year, choosing local perry pear varieties that would produce good quality perry. They chose Winnal’s Longdon, Thorn, Yellow Huffcap, Hendre Huffcap and Blakeney Red.

They planted the new orchard facing May Hill in keeping with the legend that the best perry comes from trees that can see that prominent landmark.

By 2011 they were producing two thousand litres of cider, an Oak Matured Dry Cider, a Medium cider from a blend of apples, a single variety Medium Sweet Cider made from Yarlington Mill, and four hundred litres of perry made from Winnal’s Longdon perry pears.

They realised that selling cider and perry locally was very competitive so they became regulars at Farmers’ Markets in London and the Midlands.

With encouraged from Jean Nowell they entered competitions and 2013 proved to be a memorable year. The Medium Cider won its class at the 2013 Hereford Cider Museum competition and the Yarlington Mill won the Best Sweet Cider and Best Cider from Herefordshire at the Three Counties Show.

The next accolade for the Yarlington Mill was to be judged Supreme Champion Cider at the Royal Bath and West Show in 2013. This opened up more marketing opportunities and they were invited to several Food Fairs.

In 2015 the Yarlington Mill won the Single Variety Cider award at the Hereford International competition and the cup for the best bottled cider at the Royal Bath and West Show.

Brian Robbins

Woodredding Farm

Yatton

Ross-on-Wye

Herefordshire

HR9 7RG Telephone: 01531 660257

email: brian@woodredding.co.uk website: www.woodreddingcider.co.uk