Until quite recent times, Wyken, a few miles north east of Coventry, was a very rural place. Manor house, parsonage, farmsteads and a handful of cottages accommodated a population of 150 or less. The Cravens, of the neighbouring Coombe Abbey, had been lords of the manor for generations.It was through Admiral Thomas Craven (who died in 1772) that the name of this unobtrusive spot became widely famous.
In about the year 1720 he brought from Holland, and planted in the garden of the manor house, a young apple tree of a kind apparently hitherto unknown in this country. It flourished and bore delicious fruit. Its descendants spread far beyond North Warwickshire, taking the name of Wyken with them.Nowadays, when so many varieties of dessert apples are grown and recommended, the fame of the Wykens has become obscured, though the trees are still scattered about the countryside in fair numbers; and experienced country folk, particularly those of the older generations, place this pippin high (if not right at the top) of their list of favourites.
Wyken apples are of comparatively small size. On the trees, they remain green for a while, but eventually begin to achieve an attractive yellowish complexion, often suffused with touches of bronze. As they hang before maturing they might well be mistaken for little "cookers" or uncommonly big "crabs", and I suspect that the wayside wildling may have been by no means a remote ancestor of these pippins.
Ready for picking in late September or early October, the Wykens are then hard and for the most part unpalatable, though already possessing a certain sweetness and promise.Their fame is well justified. The little apples are splendid "keepers". Their yellow colour deepens in the store, and they become aromatic, superbly sweet and tender, with a flavour all of their own. They are at their best about Christmas, but can often be kept for a month or two longer if any should survive the festive season. Mortimer's early eighteenth century "Husbandry" says that pippins (in general) "take their name from the small spots or pips that usually appear on the sides of them." Wyken Pippins have this feature.Trees of the Wyken apple grow fairly rapidly , and are generally reliable, frequently prolific, fruit bearers. Last year seems to have been an especially good year for the kind in places where the blossom did not suffer from the severe May frosts. My own standard tree of some forty years growth produced a crop of about 350lb. As a further encouragement to the cultivation of the Pippins, it is worth noting that they are self fertile: they do not require to be in proximity to apples of other variety in order to ensure that the blossoms shall set.In Langford's "Staffordshire and Warwickshire," published about 1875, it is stated that the occupant of the Wyken manor house was then William Henry Skelton, Esq., and that the original apple tree brought from Holland by Admiral Craven was still in the garden there. I have not been able to confirm this remarkable assertion. The tree may have been a descendant of an earlier one; but, at any rate, it is evident that there were Wyken Pippins in their original English home a century and a half after the first planting there.
Today, Wyken manor house is no more. A cinema stands near its site and several streets have been cut through the grounds. Modern Coventry has engulfed rural Wyken and the famous apples no longer grow there. Yet, happily, the thought of the past is kept alive by an inn, albeit of recent erection, which proudly bears the sign of "The Wyken Pippin." At the period of the introduction of the apple to Wyken the little place had only thirteen houses (according to Dr. William Thomas, 1730). Now its dwellings number over 2,000. But the ancient country church survives, some of its features dating back to Norman times. It has not wholly escaped the scars of war, and the fine east window, on which the arms of the Craven family were emblazoned, has been completely destroyed. In the chancel is an old throne like chair of Dutch or Flemish workmanship, its design fantastic in the extreme. Two winged men sit backwards upon dragons, the heads of which are turned to bite the wings; in contrast a little cherub perches above them. It seems not unlikely that the chair was brought to Wyken by that same Admiral Craven to whom we owe the pippin. It may, or may not be coincidental that the arms of the Cravens include two dragons.
Taken from an unknown and undated magazine source. |
