The Museum of Cider, a Highlight of Hereford

Having recently spent a thoroughly enjoyable long weekend in Hereford, I can now confidently state that the city has three main highlights¹. One is the chained library at Hereford Cathedral², which contains what I think is a first edition copy of Henry Bull and Robert Hogg’s Herefordshire Pomona³. Another is the rather excellent Wye Valley Brewery pub The Barrels, on Owen Street⁴. And the third is somewhere that anyone and everyone who’s at all interested in orchards, growing apples, and making or drinking cider definitely needs to spend a few hours exploring: the superb Museum of Cider.

Located just off (the appropriately named) Pomona Place, not far from the city centre, the Museum of Cider occupies a surviving section of the old Bulmers cider works. A quick glance at the modern satellite image – the museum is the building in the top-centre with the two-tone brown/grey roof – compared to the overlaid 1892-1914 OS map shows that the area occupied by the cider works used to be significantly larger, and by the looks of things even had its own railway sidings and possibly a turntable for the engine too:

The museum’s entrance hall is dominated by a vintage French cider press of truly epic proportions⁵ and beyond that is a welcoming reception area, café and gift shop selling souvenirs, books and a good range of bottled ciders. Once you’ve handed over a very reasonable entry fee – just £5.50 per adult – you’re welcome to explore the museum.

The general theme of the museum is the fascinating story of the history of cider making, and what a treasure trove of cider-related information and artefacts they have on display. The exhibits include an overview of the processes involved in making cider: from growing and harvesting, to scratting or milling the apples, to pressing the pulp and, of course fermenting the juice. There’s a look at the long history of the beverage and the growth of interest in fine cider that began around the mid seventeenth century – much of which has been credited to the influence of Lord Scudamore, a Herefordshire landowner of the age – and the subsequent development of cider making into a large-scale industry that employed thousands of people in its twentieth century heyday.

The museum also explores the social and economic importance of cider to Hereford, and the wider three counties area and the west country, in particular⁶. Cider wasn’t just a weekend drink, it was part of the fabric of daily life for vast numbers of agricultural workers, who were often paid part of their wages, particularly at harvest time, in pints or quarts of cider. And of course the annual apple harvest was a major source of employment and therefore income for seasonal farm labourers, as well as revenue for the farmers who kept faith with their orchards rather than putting them to the plough for arable crops or livestock.

There’s a wide range of fascinating artefacts on display, from the industrial: cider mills, scratters and presses; to the artistic: a dazzling selection of cider-related glassware, beautifully illustrated pomonas; to the ephemeral: labels, bottle tops, advertising signage, branded merchandise; to the personal: vintage film footage, photographs and audio recordings of cider works employees of years gone by. And, as you’d expect, there are plenty of Bulmers-related exhibits. The Bulmers cider works was a massive part of the city’s industrial past, employing around 1,500 people in the late 1960s and early 1970s⁷ across its two major manufacturing sites and the museum itself was a personal project of Bertram Bulmer after he retired as company chairman in 1973, and opened in 1981.

There’s also lots to be learned about the ‘Champagne’ Cider making method employed by Bulmers, which was introduced following a research trip to the continent by co-founder Percy Bulmer in 1894. I for one had no idea that the process of making cider used to be quite so lengthy, technical and labour intensive, or that the resulting cider was matured for so long: a number of years in the case of Bulmers’ top-of-the-range ‘Cider de Luxe’ (later ‘Pomagne’) brand⁸. Here the archive footage is particularly valuable, really helping to convey the scale of the Bulmers operation, as well as the working methods and conditions of the men and women whose livelihoods depended on the production of cider.

All in all, it’s a completely fascinating way to spend at least a couple of hours – longer if you have the time to read every information board and listen to every audio source – and I heartily recommend the experience. Plus, you get to stock up on local cider at the end of your visit (don’t forget to bring your bottle bag!)

There now follows a whistle-stop photo-tour of just a few of the eye-catching displays in the museum. (If you’re planning to visit the Museum of Cider yourself and would prefer to avoid spoilers, look away now…)

Photo Gallery

As well as the enormous French cider press, the museum has quite the collection of vintage cider-making kit, including a horse-driven cider apple mill:

They also have a mobile press – and accompanying mobile scratter – of the type that would have toured smaller farms and been hired out to the farmers so they could crush and press their own apples:

There’s a larger, hand-operated press of the type that would have been used in the twentieth century at Bulmers or a similarly-sized cider maker, complete with replica ‘cheeses’ of milled apples:

This area displays an essential part of any cider makers’ operation, the cooper’s workshop, and contains a range of cask-making tools:

In the cellars there’s a selection of cider casks, ranging from delivery-sized barrels and hogsheads…

…to much larger fermentation vessels:

Further on you can see assorted hand-operated bottling, labelling and capping machinery of the type that would have been used in the early to mid 20th century, before the introduction of automated production lines:

Including this ‘Quieta’ bottling machine:

The machine is accompanied by a couple of sheets of instructions for use, from which we learn that it was: “Specially designed for CYDER, BEER, WINE and other fobby beverages”:

Which means I now have to find out what was meant by ‘fobby’ in this context. I’m guessing it means ‘crabonated’, but if anyone knows for sure, please do leave a comment to enlighten me.

Also in the cellars, there are cider bottles. Thousands of them, racked as they would have been during the maturation stage of the Bulmers Champagne cider-making process:

And then a few more in the sort of smaller racks that were used to invert the bottles, forcing the yeast sediments that resulted from the secondary fermentation process into the neck of the bottle, where they could be ‘disgorged’ by freezing and removing the original cork. The white marks on the bottom of the bottles are to help the bottle-turners gauge the correct 45 degree per day twist:

Some of the Bulmers memorabilia on display includes a picture of the original company trademark, dating from the 1890s, which features an illustration of an intriguing method of grafting fruit trees with what appears to be a large wedge of scion material:

I was sure I’ve seen something similar before and thought it might be in William Lawson’s A New Orchard and Garden (1618), but it wasn’t that one. It turned out to be from A Booke of the Arte and Maner, Howe to Plant and Graffe All Sortes of Trees (1575) by David Brossard, trans. Leonard Mascall:

Surely that’s the source material for the Bulmers trademark?

There’s also a display of Bulmers brands of days gone by, including this rather tasty-sounding number:

One of the old offices houses a gallery of illustrations from various Pomonas, along with the stories of their authors and illustrators, which was always going to be something close to my heart:

And finally, as I mentioned earlier, there’s the gift shop, with plenty of bottled cider to choose from. Here are the mostly dry ciders that I opted for; just a small selection of the many bottles on offer:

So, there you have it, or rather, there you have just a small cross-section of the fascinating cider-related information and artefacts on display. The Museum of Cider is a visitor experience that you should definitely add to your Hereford itinerary. We’re heading back to that part of the country later in the year, so we’ll hopefully be able to call in again, if only to replenish our cider stash at the gift shop.

How about you? Have you visited the Museum of Cider? Can you recommend any other cider or orchard-themed visitor attractions in Herefordshire or the surrounding counties? Please do let me know, via the comments.

Footnotes

1
These are, of course, my personal highlights. Other highlights are available and your own choice of highlights may well differ. Each to their own, eh?
2
Just past the Mappa Mundi exhibition, which in itself would definitely make my top five.
3
As I say, I think it’s the first edition, but I didn’t actually make a note of the details. It’s so valuable they keep it in secure storage rather than on display though, so it might even be a set of the the subscriber plates that were issued before the first bound edition. Now wouldn’t that be something to see? Anyway, it’s available to view by appointment, so that’s the highlight of my next trip to Hereford sorted.
4
Lively atmosphere, great mix of people from all walks of life and age groups, decent music (not too loud) and a lovely pint of Butty Bach on handpull, plus four other cask ales / stouts / bitters and at least two different ciders, plus the usual mass-market brands on keg. No food either; just drinking, talking, football on the telly, quiz night on a Thursday, lots of conviviality and laughter, that sort of thing. Our kind of pub. It’s a good job it’s not just around the corner from us, as we’d probably never leave.
5
No photos of this one; it really has to been seen to be properly appreciated.
6
For a detailed overview of the history and fluctuating fortunes of orchard growers – the suppliers of raw materials to the cider industry – I can heartily recommend English Orchards: A Landscape History by Gerry Barnes and Tom Williamson.
7
Bulmers, A Century of Cider Making, L. P. Wilkinson (p. 185, 197)
8
Bulmers, A Century of Cider Making, L. P. Wilkinson (p. 81).

Photo Gallery

Footnotes

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