Did you know that there are more than 2,300 varieties of cooking and dessert apples grown in the UK? This is thanks in part to the many Victorian gardeners and nurserymen who were spurred on, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, by the Royal Horticultural Society to come up with new varieties. This is just one of the many fascinating facts about our apples which we make much of on Apple Day, which takes place today.

Many gardeners and orchards now hold their apple days earlier in the month, but October 21 is the official date for celebrating all that is good about the English apple.

One local orchard that held its apple day early was Waterperry Gardens, near Wheatley, where more than 12,000 apple trees flourish. As Waterperry’s previous Apple weekends have proved so popular over the years, the event ran for three days this year rather than the usual two, and attracted even more visitors than ever.

Head gardener Chris Lanczak, who has worked on the Waterperry orchard since 1968, says people are now becoming more and more interested in English apple varieties. Hence the popularity of this event.

Chris began as an apprentice at Waterperry when it was still being run by the legendary Beatrix Havegal, who conducted her school of horticulture for ladies there from 1932 to 1971. The son of a market gardener, Chris is confident that gardening is in his blood. He has been developing the five-and-a-half acres of apple trees for so long, he can now confidently bite into more than 100 varieties and recognise each one by taste alone. It was one of his tricks during Waterperry’s apple weekend, when visitors came clutching fruit from unknown trees that they wanted identified.

Chris is very proud of the fact that over the years he has established 65 different varieties of apple in the orchard, 16 of which originate from Oxfordshire. These include the Eynsham Dumpling, and Old Fred, propagated by Frederick William Wastie from Eynsham during the first half of 20th century, as well as the Eynsham Challenger and the Oxford Yeoman. Several of the apples propagated by Frederick and his son young Fred were crossed with the famed Blenheim Orange, which could account for their well-rounded taste.

Sadly, much of the land on which the Wasties established their orchards has been gobbled up for housing developments. But all is not lost. Residents of Eynsham are working to create small orchards of local apple varieties on land in and around the village. Sue Raikes, who is helping to set up Eynsham as Orchard, also believes there is a resurgence of interest both in planting fruit trees and the old varieties linked with the history of the village. She says: “There’s also a huge amount of interest in planting local fruit to reduce food-miles.”

The local varieties that Chris planted in the Waterperry orchard several years ago are now producing a plentiful supply of fruit, Indeed the crop is so prolific that he is now able to turn apples into juice.

He said: “I had apple juice in mind when I planted these trees, as I rather like the idea of offering a unique juice made from one variety that’s local to Oxfordshire.” This idea has proved so successful the estate farm shop now stocks 20 different juices all created from a single variety.

As Chris pointed out, this enables people to purchase a sweet juice such as Oxford Beauty, if that is what they like and Oxford Sunrise if they are looking for a medium juice with quite a bit of acidity. Oxford Sunrise is perfect in a pork stir-fry and other dishes that benefit from apple juice.

Raymond Blanc orders Waterperry apple juice made from Discovery apples for his breakfast guests, and his chefs choose other single varieties for use in the kitchens of Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons.

Chris presses the apples until the end of November, when he then has to begin pruning and preparing the trees for spring. He places gold caps on the sweet juice, white on the medium sweet and green on the bottles containing the dry juice.

Waterperry’s head chef Teresa Coen, enjoys this time of the year as Chris frequently brings her new varieties of apples to experiment with. She says she likes nothing better than creating a new dish from apples picked the very day they arrive in her kitchen. Her favourite recipe at the moment is a very tasty conserve made from Eynsham Dumpling apples and Victoria plums from the Waterperry orchards, which she sells in the tea rooms. Apparently it is the perfect jam to put in the centre of a Victorian sponge or a Bakewell tart.

All windfall apples at Waterperry are given to a local farmer to feed his pigs, the residue of crushed apple remaining after they have been juiced, goes to feeding the pigs too.

Chris says nothing in an orchard need be wasted as even bruised apples can be used in the kitchen, by cutting out the bruised areas and cooking the sound flesh to a pulp that can be frozen for future use, or turned into cider.