Heritage Apples in the Edwardian Kitchen Garden at Athelhampton House & Gardens
- Juliet Braidwood
- Aug 6
- 2 min read
Here at Athelhampton House & Gardens, we don't just have the formal gardens laid out for Alfred Carte de Lafontaine by Inigo Thomas. Tucked away to the East is the Edwardian Kitchen Garden at Athelhampton. At an acre in size, it doesn't just contain vegetables: it also contains around 40 apple trees.
Many of these trees were planted when the Edwardian Kitchen Garden at Athelhampton was created, with heritage varieties including Cox’s Orange Pippin, Egremont Russet, Discovery, James Grieve and Blenheim Orange.
Each autumn the orchard rewards us with its harvest. Some of the apples find their way into our homemade Dorset apple cake, while the rest are carefully pressed and blended into the fresh apple juice. Both the cake and the juice are served in the restaurant at Athelhampton House & Gardens.
The long, dry summer is beginning to leave its mark, however. Our older trees are proving wonderfully resilient, but some of the younger ones, planted later on in the garden's history, are producing smaller fruit and shedding apples to conserve their strength.
A little gentle rain would be most welcome now, and with it the promise of a bountiful autumn harvest.
Athelhampton is open every day, all year round, except for a few days over Christmas. If you book online, you can save on your ticket price, and if you want to visit two heritage gardens and save money, look out for our other offer! Present an Athelhampton admission ticket at Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens, or present an Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens admission ticket at Athelhampton House & Gardens, and save 50% of your ticket price.
