English Bramley apples

click photo to enlarge

On a visit to the minster town of Southwell in Nottinghamshire a while ago I passed the cottage on Church Street where the Bramley apple originated. The story of this famous fruit goes like this.

In 1809 the first tree with Bramley apples grew from pips planted in the garden by a little girl by name of Mary Ann Brailsford. In 1846 the cottage, the garden and its apple tree were bought by a local butcher, Matthew Bramley. A local nurseryman, Henry Merryweather, in 1846 sought permission to take cuttings from the tree and sell the ensuing apples. Bramley agreed with the proviso that the apples should bear his name: they became known as Bramley's Seedlings. Henry Merryweather sold his first apples in 1862. Over the next forty years the variety of apples grew rapidly in fame and popularity as cooking apples, gaining many horticultural awards and prizes. The original tree was blown down in a storm in 1900 but with some careful work was restored to growth and it continues to produce apples today.

The Bramley remains the most popular cooking apple in Britain and many gardeners choose it as their "cooker" to grow alongside a dessert apple tree. I have one in my garden. This year, due to the unusual weather patterns, the apples have been ready for picking three weeks to a month earlier than usual. Yesterday, with the weather forecasters predicting strong winds for the next few days I decided to do the third picking of the season and used a ladder to get some of the bigger, riper, fruit from the higher branches. As I was cleaning them up ready for storage I took this photograph. It's not much of a shot but when I look at it I see not only the firm green and red Bramleys but also the pies, crumbles, cakes etc that they will provide during the colder, darker winter days.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 65mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 1000
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33
Image Stabilisation: On

Oxton One prebendal house, Southwell

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An interesting feature of the Nottinghamshire town of Southwell is the prebendal houses that are found on the north and west sides of the Minster. A prebendary is an ecclesiastical post attached to a cathedral or minster, often a canon. The name coming from the word "prebend", which describes income generated by church-owned property. Southwell Minster, a Norman foundation, originally had 16 prebendaries. They lived in properties nearby, and over the years re-built them in ever grander style. Down the centuries the prebendaries were abolished, re-constituted, done away with and resurrected. Their final demise came with the death of the last remaining post-holder in 1873.

Today's photograph shows the finest of Southwell's prebendal houses, the former Oxton One, now called Cranfield House. It is a two-storey brick building with stone dressing, a segmental pediment over the main entrance (and another over the window above), a hipped roof with dormers, and steps with balustrades. The house was built in the early 1700s, probably by Canon George Mompesson. Looking out of the front windows of this miniature stately home the canon could see his place of work beyond his gravel driveway and the intervening road.

I passed Cranfield House on a few occasions recently, and took photographs each time. This is the best of the crop, taken when the sky was overcast and the clouds were quite low, but with sufficent breaks in them for the odd shaft of filtered sunlight to reach the ground. The symmetry of both garden and house seemed to demand a symmetrical composition, and that is what I took.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On