44. Lady Sudeley - Dessert Apple
Season : Flowers May, Crops September
Pollination : Partially self fertile, but benefiting from other pollinators - Group D
Malus domestica 'Lady Sudeley'
Beautiful large fruit with bold red stripes.
Excellent early dessert variety from the Victorian era.
A most attractive apple with the green/yellow skin taking on bold orangey red stripes as it ripens. The yellowy flesh is firm, crisp and juicy and with an excellent sweet, aromatic flavour.
Some russeting, mostly at the top.
Often quite noticeably five sided, and flat at the bottom.
It flowers relatively late, making it resistant to spring frosts, but it crops early. The blossom is showy and fragrant.
Best eaten straight from the tree in September, it does not store well as the skin tends to go greasy, and the flesh becomes soft.
Raised by Mr Jacobs in Kent in 1849, this was originally called Jacob's Strawberry.
Local nurseryman Edward Bunyard saw some in 1884 and renamed it at the request of his best customer, the Sudeley estate, who had just bought over half a million trees from him.
Lord Sudeley apparently named it for his wife because it reminded him of a court dress that she wore.
Also know as Red Sudeley, it has received an RHS Award of Merit