Cider Country by James Crowden

Author:James Crowden [Crowden, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2021-07-12T12:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

GEORGIAN CIDER

When visiting Herefordshire I always stay at Sink Green Farm on the banks of the Wye between Hereford and Holme Lacy. Lord Scudamore must have passed by many times on his horse. It is a very old site. After a fine farm breakfast I brave the traffic. All roads lead to Hereford. There below the bridge, the River Wye quietly meanders its way through town. To the right a glimpse of the sturdy, no-nonsense cathedral home to the famous Chained Library and last resting place of John Philips the cider poet. On the left, close to Sainsbury’s and a Travelodge, is Bertram Bulmer’s dream − the old cider headquarters − now the Museum of Cider with its old ‘champagne’ cider cellar down below.

The reason I have come here is to see their fine collection of Georgian cider glasses and to do more research into the 1763 cider taxation and cider riots. I also managed to have a good chat to the director, Elizabeth Pimblett. As well as running the museum, she organizes the annual cider judging competition, the paperwork for the King Offa distillery and many other cider events and displays. Elizabeth is a real live wire. A very elegant ambassador, just what cider needs these day. This is the cider embassy. Elizabeth was brought up in Hereford, her father was a local GP and they had an orchard outside town. She then read English Literature at Exeter, and did a post grad in museum gallery studies at St Andrews, specializing in archaeological collections. She has worked for the National Trust and Herefordshire County Museum Services. An ideal background for understanding the past.

As we stroll through the museum we have a long, rambling conversation about cider history: Lord Scudamore, John Evelyn, John Beale, Silas Taylor, Ralph Austen and Thomas Andrew Knight. All the usual suspects, some of whose wonderful portraits hang on the walls. The museum is home to all manner of old cider presses, even a large French beam press, as well as stone cider mills, barrels, old prints, cider labels and a new exhibition, ‘Women and the Art of Cider’, which Elizabeth curated. It is Tuesday and the archivist Sally Mansell is hard at work upstairs trying to recatalogue a vast collection of documents and cider ephemera. The Archive of Cider Pomology. This is the only cider museum in the country and it is a gem.

The collection of Georgian cider glasses, about forty in all, is displayed on a large table. They are Elizabeth’s pride and joy: she loves them dearly. In fact, seeing them persuaded her to take the job. ‘I came here in September 2016. It will soon be five years. Yes − I have enjoyed it. What sold it to me was coming round the corner and seeing that case of eighteenth-century elegant, refined cider glasses. One of the glasses has “No Excise” etched onto it. Always loved those and I thought I’d love to be able to work with those.’ ‘No Excise’

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