THE HEREFORDSHIRE POMONA
On 29th September ODGC welcomed Bill Laws, author and historian.
Published in seven sections between 1878 and 1884 the Herefordshire Pomona was designed to restore Herefordshire to its fruit growing supremacy by providing a catalogue of its apples, the names of which were in danger of being lost. It is a classic of late Victorian natural history and an important tool in assessing apple genotypes from old forgotten orchards.
In the C17 the Reverend John Beale described Herefordshire as ‘The Orchard of England’ and Herefordshire orchards as ‘A Pattern for All England’. However by the C18 there was concern that although Herefordshire was famed for its orchards very few of its best apple varieties found their way to market or fruit shop. In 1851 The Woolhope Club was founded to study the natural history of Herefordshire. The Agricultural Society of Herefordshire was persuaded that a Pomona was needed to describe and illustrate local fruit and its cultivation. A local doctor and former president of the Woolhope Club, Dr Henry Graves Bull and Dr Robert Hogg, vice president of the RHS and author of ‘The Fruit Journal’ were tasked with cataloguing and describing the fruit displayed in annual shows held by the Woolhope Club’s Pomona Committee.
The Pomona was beautifully illustrated in 441 watercolours by a commercial artist, Alice Blanche Ellis and Edith Elizabeth Bull, Henry’s daughter. These were painstakingly accurate featuring not only blossom and fruit but the diseases and blemishes to which they were prone.
The Pomona was not only useful for dessert and cooking apples but it was considered to be an important tool in advancing the knowledge of cider – ‘a beverage not only healthful but grateful to the palates of all ranks’. In 1880 Herefordshire boasted 25000 acres of orchards, more ‘fruit lands’ than Devon, Somerset or Kent.
Ghislaine Arundale
