Glossary · History
Herefordshire Pomona
Definition
The illustrated survey of apples and pears produced by the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club in the late nineteenth century, and the most substantial visual record of English cider fruit of its period.
- Subject
- History
In more detail
Its plates and descriptions remain a working reference for identification, and its existence reflects a moment when Herefordshire’s naturalists, growers and scientists were trying to put cider fruit on a systematic footing — the same impulse that produced the National Fruit and Cider Institute a generation later.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
History
Pomona
A descriptive and usually illustrated book of fruit varieties. The word is from the Roman goddess of fruit trees, and the genre is the principal historic record of cider and perry cultivars.
History
Long Ashton Research Station
The Somerset research station, founded as the National Fruit and Cider Institute in 1903 and later part of the University of Bristol, whose analyses of cider fruit and fermentation underpin most English cider science.
Fruit
Cultivar
A named clone propagated by grafting, so that every tree of it is genetically identical to the original seedling. "Variety" is used interchangeably in trade, though it has a stricter botanical meaning.
Where to go next
- Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
- Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
- Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
Hereford Museum of Cider collections and interpretation
Hereford Cider Museum Trust · museum · retrieved 2026-08-24
Herefordshire Orchards, a Pattern for all England
John Beale · historical source · passage verified 2026-08-24 · covers 1657
Identified on 2026-08-24. John Beale’s account of Herefordshire orcharding was first printed in 1657; the copy located and confirmed is the 1724 reprinting held by the Internet Archive, and CiderHQ says which it has seen rather than implying it has read the first edition. The work is an epistolary address rather than a treatise, which is worth knowing before quoting it: it argues a case for Herefordshire practice to a correspondent, and reads as advocacy as much as description. Beale is also one of the contributors to *Pomona*.