Vintage Year for Village Apple Day

Sally Jarman and Philippa Purvis, organisers of Village Apple Day 2025, write …

Rain did not stop play for the intrepid band of wonderful people who brought their apples and/or volunteered their time for our annual Village Apple Day at the Sylva Wood Centre last Sunday (19th October).

As first-year organisers, we were blown away by the offers of help to man machines, chop apples, bottle juice, learn to pasteurise and make refreshments.  It also great to welcome visitors who popped in to have a chat and a look at the process.  A HUGE thank you to all of you for making it a real community affair that had a really sociable buzz, as well as being very productive.  By the end of the event, we had produced more than 150 bottles of delicious, fresh, golden juice (a few bottles of which is still available to buy – see below).

As always, we extend our thanks to Sylva for hosting the event and to Christine, Gabriel and Phil for being so helpful and encouraging.

Jim Brown has become an integral part of apple juice production, with his management of the crushing and pressing machines.  It’s a heavy, messy job so thanks go to Jim and those who enthusiastically joined him and got stuck in.  I think a good time was had by all!

Andrew Lea has been Apple Day’s apple expert from the beginning, and once again kindly sourced extra pasteurisers and provided his expertise around pasteurisation, massively extending the safe use-by date of our juice.  Thank you, Andrew!

Our final profits this year are likely to be around £250, which will be donated to Sylva for its fantastic work.  But fundraising isn’t the main point of Apple Day: feedback from volunteers and visitors at the event has been so positive, with people remarking on the lively, friendly, busy vibe created, and that’s what it’s really about.  That atmosphere is created by everyone involved and we are really pleased to have been a part of it this year.

If you’d like to join us and get involved next year, email Sallyjarman25@gmail.com or philippa.purvis@googlemail.com.  We’d love to have you on board.

And if you’d like one of our spare bottles of juice, also contact us on email.  £3 per bottle and it really is delicious!