A campaign has been launched to raise funds for the original Bramley apple tree, which was planted more than 200 years ago. The tree was sown by Mary Ann Brailsford in the garden of her parents’ home in Church Street, Southwell, Nottinghamshire, between 1809 and 1815. Almost 50 years later, a 17-year-old boy named Henry Merryweather came across a gardener carrying some of the apples and asked where they had been grown.
By this time, the garden containing the apple tree belonged to a butcher called Matthew Bramley, who gave Mr Merryweather permission to take cuttings of the ‘Bramley Seedling’. Since then, the Bramley apple has become one of Britain’s most popular cooking apples – with more than 300 Bramley growers in England and about 83,000 tonnes grown annually in the UK. The original Bramley tree was cited as one of the 50 Great British Trees in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 2002, and it was one of 70 ancient trees to be dedicated to the Queen for the Platinum Jubilee in 2022.
However, it has been affected by honey fungus which Nottingham Trent University – the current owner of the tree – says will eventually lead it to perish. Dan Llywelyn Hall, who was the youngest artist to paint a portrait of the late Queen, has now unveiled new works of the tree entitled Swansong Of The Mother Bramley. The artworks will be auctioned to raise funds (Dan Llywelyn Hall/PA) Mr Llywelyn Hall, from Wales, said: “My painting is a last hurrah of the Bramley as it surges skywa.
