Perry pear
Green Longdon
The senior member of the Longdon group, widely grown in north-west Gloucestershire and carrying six synonyms, three of which other Longdons also claim.
Also written Longdon, Longland.
- Classification
- Sweet — Perry pear classification
- Harvest
- Late (Late October)
- Single varietal
- Sometimes bottled on its own
- Blend role
- Bulk juice, Sugar and body
- Origin
- North-west Gloucestershire
- Species
- Pyrus communis
- Flowering
- Very late flowering band
- Vigour
- Very vigorous — a large tree that takes years to settle to cropping
- Biennial bearing
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Poor — mill soon after picking
How it is classified
Perry pear classification
Sweet
Low acid, low tannin. Mild perry pears giving soft, light perry.
Long Ashton recorded acid of 1.6 g/L on young trees and 4.8 g/L on old ones, with tannin of 0.6 and 1.9 g/L respectively. Even the old-tree figures are mild.
Every classification on CiderHQ names its system. Why there is more than one.
What it contributes to a blend
A direction, not a measurement. These bands are the level of resolution the evidence supports, and they say which way adding this fruit pushes a blend rather than what the finished cider will be.
| Axis | Typical | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Acid | Low | |
| Tannin | Light | |
| Sugar | Moderate | |
| Bitterness | Slight | |
| Astringency | Noticeable | |
| Aroma | Present | |
| Body | Medium |
Long Ashton figures for young and old trees, and a 2022 survey reading of 5.0 g/L acid and 760 mg/L true tannin.
Mild and rounded, with the acid and tannin both rising markedly as the tree ages.
Aroma
No aroma descriptors are recorded for Green Longdon, and for a great deal of cider fruit that is a finding rather than a gap. Bittersweet apples in particular contribute tannin, sugar and body while being close to aromatically mute, and most of what a cider made from them smells of was produced by the fermentation rather than carried in by the fruit. CiderHQ publishes the absence rather than filling the space with descriptors nothing supports.
Measured analysis
Each figure is shown with where and when it was taken. They are not averaged: the same cultivar grown in another climate genuinely gives different numbers, and collapsing them into one would be the most misleading thing this page could do.
| Property | Reading | Where | When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free amino nitrogen | 46.8 mg/L | Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and neighbouring counties, England | 2022Modern analysis | Cider and Perry Academy (Peter Mitchell) |
| Phenolic acids | 380.0 mg/L | Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and neighbouring counties, England | 2022Modern analysis | Cider and Perry Academy (Peter Mitchell) |
| Proline | 91.0 mg/L | Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and neighbouring counties, England | 2022Modern analysis | Cider and Perry Academy (Peter Mitchell) |
| Specific gravity | 1.060 SG | Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and neighbouring counties, England | 2022Modern analysis | Cider and Perry Academy (Peter Mitchell) |
| Titratable acidity | 5.0 g/L | Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and neighbouring counties, England | 2022Modern analysis | Cider and Perry Academy (Peter Mitchell) |
| Total amino acids | 238.4 mg/L | Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and neighbouring counties, England | 2022Modern analysis | Cider and Perry Academy (Peter Mitchell) |
| Total phenolics | 1140.0 mg/L | Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and neighbouring counties, England | 2022Modern analysis | Cider and Perry Academy (Peter Mitchell) |
| Total tannin | 760.0 mg/L | Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and neighbouring counties, England | 2022Modern analysis | Cider and Perry Academy (Peter Mitchell) |
How these were measured
- Juice pressed from fruit collected in the Three Counties and frozen before analysis. Published to five decimal places and shown at the three the site displays.
- Titration, reported as malic acid.
- “True tannin” — the polymerised phenolic fraction, measured separately from the phenolic acids. Published in grams per litre and stored here in milligrams per litre by exact conversion.
- Phenolic acids measured separately from the tannin fraction. Published in grams per litre and stored here in milligrams per litre by exact conversion.
- The sum of the true tannin and phenolic acid fractions as the surveyor reports it. Published in grams per litre and stored here in milligrams per litre by exact conversion.
- HPLC. The whole amino acid pool by mass, assimilable and non-assimilable together.
- Free amino nitrogen, calculated from the individual amino acids as nitrogen available to yeast. Excludes proline.
- HPLC.
- One sample from one source in one season. The surveyor reports the same variety differing markedly between years, sites and tree types, and publishes the samples separately rather than pooling them.
- Measured as “true tannin” — the polymerised phenolic fraction — separately from the phenolic acids. It is not a Folin–Ciocalteu total and not a permanganate total, and should be compared only with figures produced the same way.
- Perry pear juice runs far lower in assimilable nitrogen than cider apple juice, a difference the Long Ashton workers reported and this survey confirms across most of the varieties sampled. Several readings here sit below the level at which a ferment is generally expected to need feeding.
- Proline is an amino acid a wine or cider yeast cannot assimilate without oxygen, so it does not count towards usable nitrogen. In these pear juices it routinely exceeds the whole assimilable amino pool, which is why a perry must can be rich in amino acids and starved of nitrogen at the same time.
Compare within a study to see where these figures sat among the other cultivars the same work analysed — which is a more robust statement than the figures themselves, because absolute values move between laboratories and the ordering inside one study mostly survives.
Watched in the orchard
What named research programmes recorded about this fruit at their own sites. Bloom, harvest and cropping belong to a place and a run of seasons rather than to a cultivar, so they are reported site by site rather than merged.
Three Counties perry pear juice survey
Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and neighbouring counties — the perry country itself, rather than a research station elsewhere · 2022–2024 · Cider and Perry Academy (Peter Mitchell)
The lower Severn and Wye vales: mild, wet, and the only ground in Britain where perry pears have ever been grown at scale. Fruit was collected across three autumns, and the survey reports each collection separately rather than pooling the seasons.
- Held as
- Sample GL-Oct22
Juice from single varieties, frozen before analysis. Specific gravity; titratable acidity by titration as malic acid; “true tannin” and phenolic acids measured as separate fractions; individual amino acids by HPLC, with free amino nitrogen calculated from them and proline reported apart because yeast cannot assimilate it anaerobically. Where samples differed by location, tree age or year, they are reported separately.
In the orchard
- Harvest window
- Late
- Flowering
- Very late flowering band
- Vigour
- Very vigorous — a large tree that takes years to settle to cropping
- Cropping
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Poor — mill soon after picking
Late October to early November at Hartpury — later than most of the group. The National Perry Pear Collection records it ripening in late October or early November at Hartpury, which agrees with the window recorded here.
The collection describes a largish tree.
Very late flowering. Green Longdon, Barnet, Bunch, Gin, Red Pear, Rock, Cannock, Teddington Green and White Bache are the collection’s whole very late band, and a very late pear planted among mid-flowering neighbours may flower alone.
Pears are not self-fertile. A variety needs another in blossom at the same time to set fruit, which is why the flowering band matters more in a perry orchard than the harvest window does.
Ripening moves with the site and the season. Where the National Perry Pear Collection’s observation at Hartpury falls in a different band from the window recorded here, both are kept rather than one overwriting the other.
Juice and pressing
- Acid rising from about 1.6 g/L on young trees to 4.8 g/L on old ones
- Tannin rising from 0.6 to 1.9 g/L over the same span
- Moderate gravity around 1.057 to 1.060
How it is used
- Widely planted in north-west Gloucestershire and blended as a mainstay rather than as a corrective.
On its own
Sometimes bottled on its own
Made alone in the region, though its mildness gives a gentle perry rather than a striking one.
About Green Longdon
Green Longdon is the pear most often meant when an old Gloucestershire orchard record says simply “Longdon”, and the trouble is that it is not the only one. The National Perry Pear Collection’s register lists Longdon and Longland as synonyms of Green Longdon, of Winnal’s Longdon and of White Longdon alike. Three distinct pears, one shared name, and no way to resolve a nineteenth-century mention to any of them. This is the perry pear identity problem in a single group.
Its measured composition is mild: Long Ashton recorded acid of 1.6 grams per litre and tannin of 0.6 on young trees, rising to 4.8 and 1.9 on old ones. That pairing is unusually valuable, because it is one of the few places where a source publishes the same variety at two tree ages, and it puts a number on the compiler’s warning that perry pear juice quality "improves tremendously with tree age". A modern survey reading of 5.0 grams per litre of acid sits close to the old-tree figure.
The practical constraint is flowering. The collection places Green Longdon in its very late band, one of only nine varieties there. Pears are not self-fertile, and a very late variety needs another very late variety nearby — which is exactly the sort of planning that gets lost when an orchard is replanted piecemeal over fifty years.
Names, origin and identity
Cultivar naming is the hardest problem in cider fruit data. The same tree carries different names across ten miles, and two different trees have shared a name for two centuries.
Origin · traditional account
The collection notes that the name may come from Longdon village, and that opinions differ. That is as far as the evidence goes.
| Name | Kind | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Brown Longdon | Regional name | Recorded by the National Perry Pear Collection. |
| Longdon | Disputed identity | The bare name Longdon is claimed by Green Longdon, Winnal’s Longdon and White Longdon alike in the collection’s own register. It identifies a group, not a pear. |
| Longland | Disputed identity | Also claimed by Winnal’s Longdon and White Longdon. Where an old orchard record says “Longland”, it cannot be resolved to a variety. |
| Old Fashioned Longdon | Regional name | Recorded by the collection, and a name that implies the group already had a newer member when it was coined. |
| Russet Longdon | Regional name | Recorded by the collection. |
The National Perry Pear Collection’s identifications are supported by DNA analysis of the trees it holds, which is why they are treated here as the stronger account where they conflict with a documentary one. Where the collection records a name for two varieties it holds as distinct, the name identifies a group of trees rather than one variety, and fruit offered under it needs checking against something other than its label.
Why it matters
- The Long Ashton figures for this variety are published for young trees and for old trees separately, which makes it the clearest measured demonstration on the site that a perry pear analysis is a statement about the age of the tree.
Related cultivars
Recorded relationships, including the ones this fruit is routinely confused with.
Fruit that plays a similar part
Cultivars sharing a classification under the same system and a comparable role in a blend. Not a similarity score — a stated relationship.
Barnet
A very late-flowering Three Counties perry pear of mild juice, carrying six recorded synonyms and one that collides with a cider apple.
Bartestree Squash
A late-ripening Herefordshire squash pear of notably low acid, and one of the mildest juices in the modern Three Counties survey.
De Cloche
A bell-shaped Domfrontais poiré pear, planted alongside Plant de Blanc and giving a mild, sweet juice.
Green Roller
An early-flowering Three Counties perry pear with the highest assimilable nitrogen recorded in the modern survey.
Potato Pear
A heavily russeted Monmouthshire perry pear whose name describes a fruit that looks like a potato, giving a mild, sweet juice.
Arlingham Squash
A soft-fleshed perry pear from the Severn parish of Arlingham, sharing its second name with Taynton Squash without being related to it.
Where it grows
What people ask next
Questions readers ask about the things this page mentions. Each one goes to the section that answers it rather than to a page written to receive the question.
- What is perry — Perry is an alcoholic drink made by fermenting the juice of pears, traditionally of specific perry pear cultivars rather than eating pears. It is to pears what cider is to apples, and has its own history in the three counties of England and in Normandy.
- Do cider apple trees need another variety to pollinate them — Almost always. Most apples are self-incompatible, and several important cider varieties are triploid, which means they produce poor pollen and need two compatible partners rather than one.
- What is juice blending
- How are perry pears classified — Perry pears are conventionally divided by acid and tannin into sweet, medium sharp, bittersharp and bittersweet, following the scheme used in the English perry literature. Sorbitol content matters too, and it does not appear in the classes.
- What is still perry
- What is herefordshire cider
Where to go next
- How cider apples are classified — Why there are four schemes and none of them is universal.
- The blend explorer — See which way changing the proportions moves a blend.
- Blending — What a cider maker is actually deciding when they build a blend.
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.
Perry Pear Varieties from Long Ashton (NACM Short Report 8.2)
National Association of Cider Makers, Archive of Cider Pomology · research institute · passage verified 2026-08-25 · covers 1903–1963
A four-page compilation, dated March 2010, of the Long Ashton perry pear varieties: for each of twenty pears, its vigour, cropping habit, maturity window, specific gravity, acidity, tannin and an assessment of vintage quality. It rests on Luckwill and Pollard’s Perry Pears (1963), which CiderHQ has verified bibliographically and has not opened, so the figures are held at traditional-record tier rather than at research tier despite originating in institutional analysis. This is the report that ended a two-sprint gap: before it, no perry pear page on the site carried a cultivar-specific number.
Perry Pears and Perry — Research and Survey Work
Cider and Perry Academy (Peter Mitchell) · specialist publication · passage verified 2026-08-25 · covers 2022–2024
Ongoing survey work by a cider and perry technologist who has taught production for decades, published openly and updated annually; retrieved and read in full on 2026-08-25. Thirty-eight single-variety perry pear juices analysed for gravity, titratable acidity, the tannin and phenolic acid fractions separately, and the individual amino acids by HPLC — the last of which nobody else has done at this scale for perry. Not peer-reviewed, and the author is explicit that the accompanying fermentation trials are initial surveys needing statistical treatment before differences are called significant; CiderHQ repeats that wherever the fermentation results are used.
National Perry Pear Centre, Hartpury · specialist organisation · passage verified 2026-08-24
Read on 2026-08-24 — and the address CiderHQ had registered, perrypears.co.uk, is no longer the Centre at all. It fails the TLS handshake over https, and over plain http it resolves to a Sedo domain-parking page: an earlier pass in this sprint recorded it as retrieved on the strength of an HTTP 200, which was wrong, and the correction is the point. The Centre publishes at nationalperrypearcentre.org.uk. It is the closest thing British perry has to an identity authority: it holds at least two examples of most known varieties, states that the DNA of most of them has been determined and is used as an aid to identification, and publishes a variety register with synonym lists. Its 121-variety register is transcribed into the perry pear records, including the nineteen names it shows being claimed by more than one variety.
Gloucestershire Orchard Trust · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
Research Evidence standard for this record. What that means.