A COUPLE who moved to a nine-acre smallholding have been inspired by an information board near a bus stop to produce a local cider.

Jon Miles and his wife Sam moved to Tremayna Farm, St Gennys, just above Crackington Haven in 2010.

Jon said: “When we first visited the Haven we noticed a local information board near to the bus stop which referred to orchards in the valley leading up from the beach and a building in the Haven to which the community’s apples would be brought for pressing to make cider in times gone by.

“As Tremayna Farm is situated toward the top of the same valley and we had made cider, on a domestic scale, at our last address we decided to plant about 30 cider trees to see how they did.

“The initial trees seemed to cope well with the conditions and so we took a deep breath and decided to clear the rest of the land and plant an orchard of around 1,100 cider apple trees over the next two years.”

The apple varieties they have planted are a mixture of heritage West Country cider apples and old Cornish varieties such as Captain Broad, Colloggett Pippin, Lord of the Isles and Tommy Knight.

Jon was keen to plant some Rattler trees but was unable to find a supplier for this variety and was helped out by the Cornish Mother Orchard at Cotehele, who supplied him with some wood from their trees, which he was able to graft onto rootstocks to create new trees.

Jon added: “Whilst trying to establish themselves the trees have been attacked by wind, deer, rabbits and me running the odd one over with the tractor! On the whole, however, they have survived and are beginning to crop.”

He continued: “Early In 2016 we were wondering about how we were going to manage to turn a commercial quantity of apples into cider as it was clear that my old home made press and other equipment was not up to the task. It was at this time that one of our neighbours told us about Cornwall Development Company’s Leader Fund which was looking to support rural businesses. We applied and found that we had been successful in November 2016.”

They were able to borrow the funds needed to match the Leader funding and create a purpose built cider barn and buy the equipment they needed for commercial production. In January 2017 they bought a timber framed barn and self-built it to try and make the money they had available to buy equipment stretch as far as possible. Fortunately, the weather in the first six months of the year was pretty good and they managed to get the frame up and the roof on just before the new cider press arrived from Austria.

From June 2017 onward equipment continued to arrive and, after a few sleepless nights they just about managed to get the pressing equipment up and running by October.

Jon said: “We had two pressing weekends during October. The first was a trial run and there were a couple of apple juice tsumanis before we ironed out some teething troubles with the set-up of the equipment. On the second weekend, with the help of friends and neighbours, we managed to press the bulk of the apples without any more floods and ended up with 7,000 litres of apple juice, which is now in bulk fermenters.

“Work in the barn has now turned to creating a bottling line and a small retail area from which it is hoped to make farm gate sales to the public. We are hoping that the first cider will become available in the summer of 2018 and will be building a website so that anyone interested can see how we are progressing.”