Gary Watkins-Sully is a cider maker at Sully’s Cider in New South Wales, Australia. On a hunt to increase the gene pool of cider varieties his team has been out searching the district’s remnant apple orchards. One orchard has unearthed a fascinating connection to Somerset and our heritage of cider-makers
The stillness is only interrupted by the melodic warbling of magpies aloft on the gentle breeze. No longer do you hear the churning of the mill, nor the groaning of the press.
Clinking bottles accompanied by cider induced banter are just a ghostly echo of days long gone. High on a hill, enclosed by the original hawthorn hedge stand the ruins of the Wilton's cider factory, a dwindling epitaph to the remarkable struggles and achievements of a migrant Somerset family that settled in a remote outpost of New South Wales in the mid 1800s.
The form of this derelict monument, and its immediate environment, are rare in this part of the world. It holds clues to a narrative of a once cherished cider-making enterprise, the people who created it, and the place they came from. The factory's skilfully laid walls of dart and feather masonry would not be out of place in the West Country of 19th century Britain. A surreal door, seemingly going nowhere, hovers at the gable end. Once there would have been a cart chocked below, as lumpy sacks were manhandled through the door and into the apple loft.
The murmurous rumble of apples joyously rolling down a wooden chute alerted those below that work was about to begin. The factory is empty now. The 'Ingenio' mill and cider press, purchased around 1870 from the Albert Day Foundry at Mark, Somerset, has been rehoused at the nearby Braidwood Museum. The Wiltons too are long gone.
But not too far, as the graves of pioneer cider makers, Charles and Hannah Wilton, lay still in a shady corner overlooking the old factory.
The groaning of a cider press under forceful coercion was a familiar sound to Charles and Hannah Wilton. Whilst at sea, suchlike sounds formed reason for uneasiness to those who had spent their entire life in the rural setting of the Somerset Levels. These
anxious noises belonged to the eight hundred and fifty ton ship, George Seymour, departing Plymouth harbour under sail. Unbeknown to those onboard they were about to engage in a violent confrontation with nature, for a deadly tempest was brewing in the English Channel.
Charles, his wife Hannah, their teenage son James and new born Henry Peter had uprooted from rural Somerset and were on passage to a new life in Australia.Charles hailed from the cathedral town of Wells. Home was a patchwork of colourful fields, divided erratically by thorny hedges and narrow lanes. For some, life was Arcadian, simple but fulfilling. Yet a dark cloud of hardship hovered over Charles from an early age.
Born amid the sub-zero winter of 1813, his father died not long after his birth. His mother followed five years later. Orphaned at the age of six he trod an uphill path to adulthood. But make it he did, as on the 27th April 1835 Charles was wedded to his darling Hannah and for the next fourteen years they strayed little from the fertile soils of the Somerset Levels. Home was an ancient landscape that had matured into the cornerstone of the Somerset cider tradition.
In these parts cider and cider making has a reverence entwined within the psyche of place, community, celebration and economy. Cider was currency between land owner and labourer. The farmer who made the best cider attracted the best workers.
Charles grew up as part of the local itinerant labour force rolling from farm to farm, helping with grafting, planting, pruning, harvesting and of course cider making. Despite this seemingly idyllic existence, the plight of the English agricultural worker at this time was grim. The Enclosure Acts of rural England had handed six million acres of common land to already wealthy land owners in an attempt to drive agricultural workers into the factories and mills of the industrial revolution.
England became rare amongst wealthy nations, in having no class of landed peasantry. To compound matters, new agricultural technology was competing with the traditional labour force, driving wages down. The well entrenched church tithe system did little to relieve asperity. Religious loyalty and the fear of persecution obliged the poor to make payments they could ill afford, whilst fat cat clergymen lived sumptuously within the community.
With this backdrop of systemic hardship, dark clouds gathered over the Wiltons once more.
There was little time for the Wiltons to lament the sweet soil of Somerset, as the storm raged with a ferocity beyond the comprehension of agrarian hearts. Pattern and direction were lost as storm debris was flung chaotically about the ship. Eventually the ship's surgeon was forced to surrender to the belligerent hell and fury and advised the Captain to make for safe harbour. The Sir George Seymour limped into Falmouth harbour just five days after departing from Plymouth and having completed less than a 100km of the proposed 21 388km journey.
For some, it was an auspicious start to a new life, for others it was the end! There were twenty fatalities on the voyage, mostly in the extreme weather at the start and mostly children. What must Charles and Hannah have thought as they lay in the austere accommodation at the Falmouth quarantine station?
Bedraggled of body and minds awash with traumatic imagery, it would have been tempting to abandon ship and make their way back to grim, yet familiar Somerset. But they brushed themselves off and remounted the metaphorical steed with pugnacious courage and continued on their voyage. Sea travel at the time was treacherous particularly for the 'steerage' passengers cramped in unhygienic quarters below deck. Sickness and death was always nearby, highlighted by the occasional hastily built coffin lowered solemnly over the side.
The Wiltons arrived in Australia on the 14th May 1849.
The Australian sun danced on the blue water of Geelong Harbour, as the Sir George Seymour rocked gently in its shelter. The serenity occasionally turned to excitement as scouting landowners rowed out to the ship, looking to jump queue and pick out the best workers.
Remaining passengers, including the Wiltons, were eventually ferried ashore and housed at the Geelong immigration depot, where they continued their pursuit for meaningful employment. Charles must have been promised work at one of the nascent pastoral properties in the Braidwood district, some 800 km to the northeast, as on 16th January 1851 Hannah gave birth to 'currency lad' Samuel Charles at Majors Creek.
Just nine months later the Wiltons' destiny was to take a serendipitous turn.
Majors Creek lies in the high country east of the Great Dividing Range, about half way between present day Canberra and the coast. Sea weary feet had barely settled when news came that gold had been found at Majors Creek. The discovery went viral and within six months there were more than two thousand prospectors working 'The Creek'.
Serendipity had landed the Wiltons amidst a growing calico city of hope, where findings were rich and fellowship grew amongst the diggers. Charles and Hannah found their own pocket of pay-dirt, and within a few years had earned enough to purchase two prime plots of land at nearby Long Flat.
Charles and Hannah were savvy to the incongruous nature of gold prospecting and started to farm their land, supplying the concourse of diggers at their doorstep. Charles reverted to what he new best and set up a slice of Somerset amidst the tablelands of New South Wales.
He kept dairy cattle, raised sheep for meat, and planted an extensive orchard of cider apple varieties.
By the time Charles and Hannah's orchard began to crop significantly, most of the easily recovered alluvial gold had been worked out. The population of 'The Creek' was on the ebb, despite Charles and Hannah's efforts to raise numbers with the arrival of a daughter Ann Maria.
However, the discovery of bedrock gold deposits brought a new wave of more settled, miners, who became part of the social fabric. Apple yields increased and the cider flowed. Wilton's cider became a regular tipple for many at the Creek and in the
late 1860s Charles up scaled and imported a state of the art crushing mill and press from the famous Albert Day foundry in Somerset. Charles and Hannah saw out their remaining years doing what they loved, on their farm.
Charles passed away mid-vintage 1887 and eighteen months later Hannah followed. However, this was not the end of the Wilton cider story, as Ann Maria, now wed to gold miner William Izzard, continued to make cider at the Mount Pleasant factory for another thirty three years.
In 1921, at the age of fifty six, William rode into Majors Creek to pick up the mail and, at the same time, squeeze in a quick tipple at the Elrington Hotel. On his return home the horse took a tumble and William's foot jammed in the stirrup. The horse bolted dragging William some seventy five metres to his death.
To this day residents of Long Flat will tell you that on a dark night, the ghostly figure of Maria can be seen at The Wilton's waiting for William to come home, and if you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of horse hooves galloping up Izzards Lane.
To learn more about Sully's Cider in Australia visit braidwoodmade.com.au
