OVER 600 people celebrated Porlock’s history as an important apple-producing centre at the village’s Apple Press and Rural Crafts Festival on Saturday (October 22).
Organiser Grant Dennis’s Apple Press Group was kept busy throughout the day producing apple juice on the restored 1862 apple press in the orchard garden of Porlock Visitor Centre.
“People are fascinated by the old ways of doing things,” said Grant.
The festival included demonstrations of old country crafts including pole-lathe wood turning, basket weaving, blacksmithing and corn dolly making.
* TWENTY types of apples grown in Carhampton Community Orchard were a highlight of the village’s 25th Apple Day on Saturday (October 22).
The orchard, opened in 1989, now has over 30 varieties of apples, many of them rare and centuries-old.
Visitors to the orchard and the village hall watched demonstrations of traditional apple juicing and were invited to have their own fruit identified by local expert Phil Greenland.