lthough apple orchards were established in England by the Romans there is no evidence of cider making until the Norman Conquest. Cider making was certainly established in Europe before then. One of the earliest references to it was by Charlemagne at the beginning of the 9th century.

were brought up on cider

nd I be a hundred and two

ut still that be 'nuthin when you come to think

e father and mother be still in the pink

ND they were brought up on cider

f the rare old Bkackthorn brew

ND me Granfer drinks quarts

or he's one of the sports

hat were brought up on cider too

ther traditions are associated with cider, most notably the Wassail. Farmers and farm workers used to salute the apple trees in a ceremony known as wassailing. Wassail or Wass Hal means Be Thou of Good Health. The time of the wassail varied from Christmas Eve to Twelfth Night. Participants carried jugs of cider into the orchards, drank a health to the trees and the anticipated next year's crop, and poured cider around the tree roots. During the wassailing a great deal of noise was created by banging pots and pans. Wheat flour cakes were eaten at these ceremonies and small pieces of the cake were dipped in cider and placed in the forks of the trees as a thanksgiving to the spirit of the tree.

n the 17th century, attention started to be paid to both the apple varieties used for cider making and the quality of the cider. In his Discourse of Husbandrie used in Brabant and Flanders (1645), Samuel Hartlib stated his concerns about the poor quality of the apples used in England for cider making. He praised the cider made in Normandy and northern Spain using specially selected apple varieties. Things evidently hadn't improved by the end of the 18th century. D. Marshall in his book, The Rural Economy of Gloucestershire published in 1796 described the three principal drinks made in the county at the time. They were cider, perry and a cider made jointly from apples and pears. He lamented the poor quality of much of the cider then produced, saying "A palate accustomed to sweet cider would judge the rough cider of the farm houses to be a mixture of vinegar and water, with a portion of dissolved alum to give it a roughness." He then went on to describe in great detail the most common forms of cider mills and presses and gave strong recommendations as to the processes to adopt for the production of good quality cider.

he usual method of harvesting apples was to send men with long slender poles or rods (polting lugs) to beat the trees. Women with baskets then collected the fallen fruit. He condemed the practice, stating "The criterion of a due degree of ripeness is that of the fruit's falling spontaneously from the tree. Nature is the best judge of this crisis. No art has yet been discovered, to mature unripe fruit, in any way equal to nature's process. Fruit, in all human probability, does not quit the tree (in an undisturbed state) until it has received its full complement of nourishment." The book gave much sensible advice on the storage of the fruit and its milling. After the pressing Marshall stated that most farm cider makers reground the residue with water for a "family drink".

ne of the 18th century methods of cider making condemned by Marshall was described by A. fothergill, a physician commissioned to determine the extent of copper contamination of ciders. He described the production of cuit cider thus: "Cyder wine prepared after the method communicated by Dr. Rush, as practised in America, viz by evapourating in a brewing copper the fresh apple-juice till half of it be consumed. The remainder is then immediately conveyed into a wooden cooler, and afterwards is put into a proper cask, with an addition of yeast and fermented in the ordinary way. The process is evidently borrowed from what has long been practised on the recent juice of the grape, under the term of vin cuit, or boiled wine, not only in Italy but also in the islands of the Archipelago, from time immemorial." The report further states that the practice was much imitated in England, and especially in the west of England. The author condems the process stating that "The evapouration of the must by long boiling not only occassions an unnecessary waste of both liquor and fuel, but also dissipates certain essential principles, without which the liquor can never undergo a complete fermentation, and without a complete fermentation there can be no perfect wine. Hence boiled wines are generally crude and heavy and flat, liable to produce indigestion, flatulency and diarrheoa."

he report condems the inconsistency in production especially the conduct of fermentation. Some brewers used open vats, some closed hogsheads and some even tried to prevent the fermentation under the impression that it was a fault. There was no use of thermometers, "And that for fining down the liquor, many have recourse to that odious article, bullock's blood, when the intention might be much better answered by whites of eggs, or isinglass." The author highly recommend cider and perry produced by more straight forward traditional methods: "When the must is prepared from the choicest fruit and undergoes the exact degree of vinous fermentation requisite to its perfection, the acid and the sweet are thus admirably blended with the aqueous, oily and spiritous principles, and the whole imbued with the grateful flavours of the rinds, and the agreable aromatick butter of the kernels; it assumes a new character; grows lively, sparkling and exhilerating; and when completely mellowed by time, the liquor becomes at once highly delicious to the palate, and congenial to the constitution, superior in every respect to most other English wines, and perhaps not inferior to many of the foreign wines."

ollowing the attention given to the improvement of cider during the 18th century, there was much planting of cider apples in Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset, and Devon. Cider was very popular and on farms in the West Country workers received a daily allocation of cider as part of their wages. Cider was supplied to ships in Bristol harbour and was often shipped by sea from Devon to London. Once in London it was often adulterated and sold as imported wine.

ttention began to be paid to cider apple varieties. The Foxwhelp, which appeared in the mid 17th century, became popular and was used in the finest ciders. According to Hugh Staffor, the Styre or Stiar apple was noted for producing a bold, masculine, and strong cider and at one time was almost the only apple esteemed for producing rough cider. In Devon at the beginning of the 18th century, Royal Wilding came into prominence. Other varieties were alse developed such as Meadgate, White-Sour, the Irish Cockagee, and Elliot. Somerset, not reknowned for good cider until then, gave rise to the most famous cider apple of all, the Kingston Black (Black Taunton).

n the 19th century much of the art of cider making which had been developed during the 17th and 18th centuries seems to have been lost. Revival of interest in cider apples was encouraged by G.W. Radcliffe Cooke of Hellens, Herefordshire who, in 1898, wrote A Book about Cider and Perry. Neville Grenville of Glastonbury, Somerset, in co-operation with the Bath and West and Southern Counties Society aided by small grants from the Board of Agriculture, began experiments on cider production in 1893. These experiments were one of the factors leading to the setting up of the National Fruit and Cider Institute.