Bramley Apple Festival : Authors from overseas to visit

An author from Japan and one from America will be guests at this year’s Bramley Apple Festival in Southwell, which takes place a week today (Saturday, October 21).

Japanese author Sakuko Kitano features the Bramley in several of her books, while the latest children’s book by American author Susan Allen is based on the origins of the apple.

The Festival of Food and Drink will be held in Southwell Minster.

Cookery demonstrations start at 11am with Ladies In Pigs (Cooking With British Pork).

At 11.45am Linda Hewett will lead a session on Bread And Bramleys; at 12.45pm it will be Joe Hunt (Entertaining Ideas Using Bramleys); at 1.45pm Teresa Bovey will present Easy On The Waistline; and at 2.45pm Andrea Wallace will lead Simple Bakes And More Entertaining Ideas.

There will be 30 stalls offering visitors the chance to sample and buy local and regional products, including cakes and pastries, savoury pies, artisan breads, sloe gins and wines.

Starkey’s Fruit will be among those attending and will be launching a new product, Starkey’s Cider, made from Bramley and Cox apples grown at Norwood Park.

Nottingham University’s enabling food innovation team will be carrying out a study to see if apple juice made from Starkey’s original Bramley orchard tastes different to that made from a regular Bramley apple orchard.

There will also be ceramics, cookery books and magazines, products made from Bramley wood and a display of apples from John Hempsall’s Heritage Orchard, East Markham.

There will be children’s crafts and trails in the Archbishop’s Palace and Education Centre garden from 10.30am to 3.30pm.

The Lord Conyers Morris Men will be dancing in the minster grounds, the courtyard of the Saracen’s Head Hotel and at The Admiral Rodney.

The WI apple pie competitions, along with stalls, will be held in the Bramley Centre. The prizegiving will be in the afternoon, along with the crowning of the Bramley Apple King and Queen chosen from pupils at Lowe’s Wong Infants’ School, and a prince and princess from Children’s House Nursery.

The library is organising an apple-themed Big Draw, a national event that encourages people to try art, as well as the annual Bramley Apple painting competition and exhibition and poetry contest. The painting and poetry awards will be at 4.30pm on Sunday.

Other events include apple-themed activities at The Workhouse, where there will be clog dancing, a challenge to create the longest apple peel, an apple trail and storytellers.

On the Sunday there will be a Bramley Apple Celebration Race at Southwell Racecourse.

The winning owners will be presented with a Bramley Apple tree.

The event’s sponsors include Nottinghamshire County Council and Southwell Town Council.

More information is available from the Tourist Information Centre in Southwell or by visiting www.visit southwell.com