| Date | 20 November 2015 |
|---|---|
| Source | Slough Observer |
| Reference | VP-0079 |
| Volume | Views of the Past |
| Collection | Views of the Past |
Transcript
Fruit of Cox’s labour
IN A number of parts of Colnbrook close to Bath Road there are a signs which either contain the word “Cox” or “Pippin”.
This of course was and still is the name of an apple, Cox’s Orange Pippin, which was first cultivated in and around the village in the 1830s.
The story of the Cox’s Orange Pippin apple starts in London as Richard Cox, its inventor, was originally in charge of the Black Eagle Brewery in Bermondsey.
In 1820 he retired from brewing and moved to Colnbrook together with his wife Ann to a house called The Lawns, later known as Colnbrook Lawns.
This gave him more time to pursue his hobby of horticulture.
Cox’s house was surrounded by two acres of land in the vicinity of Rodney Way and Daventry Close on the north side of the Old Bath Road which is now part of Colnbrook’s High Street.
In 1830, he planted pips from a Ribston Pippin apple, which he grew in his orchard, and then crossed it with a Blenheim orange.
He had created a new fruit which he started to sell to other nurserymen.
In 1836, he supplied grafts of the new fruit to nurseryman E Small & Son who subsequently offered the first trees for sale in 1830.
Cox went on to create two different varieties of his new apple; Cox’s Orange Pippin and Cox’s Pomona.
Sadly Cox died in 1845 without much recognition for his discovery.
These varieties of fruit remained mostly unknown until they were brought to the attention of Charles Turner, the proprietor of the Royal Nursery in High Street, Slough.
Turner was impressed by their quality and began to offer them in his catalogue in 1850 and from that period onwards, other English nurserymen began to graft and sell Cox’s Orange Pippin trees.
By 1883 it had become one of the most popular types of apple in the country.
By the start of this century, Cox’s Orange Pippin was being grown across the world and is still Britain’s most popular type of apple, accounting for approximately 50 per cent of all apples grown in the UK.
The original Cox’s Orange Pippin tree in Colnbrook was sadly blown down in a storm in 1917, but luckily two trees were grafted from the original and were still standing in the orchard in 1933.
However, the site of the orchard today, like so much of this area’s heritage, is occupied by a low-rise block of flats called The Lawns named after Cox’s original building.
Image: Cox’s Orange Pippin apple
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