Innerleithen is a small Scottish Borders town famed for its Spa drinking waters in the 1800′s and then for knitting cashmere  in the 1900′s. Whilst the spa drinking water is still very much in the town, sadly the cashmere knitting industry is now a shadow of what it once was.

Certainly it is set amongst some of the finest scenery in the UK and fortunately the area has not become too spoilt with new developments (although there are a number ). Only 30 miles south of Edinburgh and with road good access , Newcastle and Glasgow are  not too far away.

 Innerleithen continues with its traditional Border gathering called ‘The Games Week’. Held in the 3rd week of July and for one week  only, the whole town echoes to the sound of brass and pipe music,processions of Monks and Sash Girls,The Lantern Bearer and, of course, the Standard Bearer and his Lass attending all manner of civic events.

And then it is back to the reality of normal life.

It is here, in this truly rural area of the UK, that I came to live in  with my family in 1983  and escaped- forever- the horrors of the south east of England.

We bought a resonably large, detached, 4 bedroomed house for…..well, I won’t say as it will only give rise to envy to those living in the south east! Oh! and by the way it is situated on the banks of a small tributary of the River Tweed called Leithen Water.

Historically, a house or a dwelling of some kind has been here for centuries, because in order to cross the Leithen Water, you had to use either a ford or later (around 1700) a bridge. That bridge was too narrow for carts and so only horses or packhorses could cross over the bridge. The scottish word for a small, rough horse is a ‘cuddy’ and so you had to use the’cuddy bridge’!

Interestingly, a ‘cuddy’ in old Scots was also the term to describe a sawbench-the ones made up of a series of crosses to hold the log whilst it was sawn. Maybe, just maybe , the shape of the bridge slightly resembles such an article?

Whatever the derivation,  the bridge next door to Leithen House has been known as the Cuddybridge for many a century and hopefully for many more.

As my first steps into making apple juice and cider was only about 5 paces from the Cuddybridge, it only seemed right to call the new venture ‘Cuddybridge’. Now when I talk about making apple juice, it is Cuddybridge Apple Juice and when talking about cider, then Cuddybridge Cider. Simple! 

I started in 2005, after I came home from planting an apple orchard not very far away. I planted 50 modern bush apple trees-some Scottish varieties, some old Uk varieties, and some like -Court pendu Platt - that go way back to Roman times. As I drove home, it dawned on me the owner of the new orchard had admitted that he liked one apple a day! The 50 that I had planted would give him, eventually, over 2500+ apples per year! What would he do with the rest?

CUDDYBRIDGE CIDER

Soon cider came to mind, and that then lead me onto a winter of reading and getting as much knowledge as I could for the following autumn. Cutting a very long story short, the first year was a roaring success as far as making cider was concerned and spurred me on to to do better next year.

However, beginners luck left me in that next year, or perhaps it was more a case of ‘a little knowledge being a dangerous thing’, and the cider was no good. At the time, I thought it was me, but talking to a cider man in Edinburgh he suggested that wet weather all summer and no sun added up to a low sugar content in the apples, and that I had not taken those facts into account following my great year previous. Wise words, indeed.

So from then on I swerved around cider and decided that apple juice was a safer bet. And from many aspects it was, and still is.

Almsot everyone smiles when you talk about cider, but  very few really enjoy it-especially the still, natural cider- rather than Mr Magners version! Would they really buy cider once a week ,every week of the year?

Apple juice has the great attraction in that everyone aged from 3 to 93 and beyond, can drink apple juice and it won’t do them any harm at all. A daily surfeit of cider might give you a permanent smile, but it might also give you a permanent bed in the local hospital or police station!.

So Cuddybridge Apple Juice won the day, and whilst it still our major product, I’m going back into cider making this year with the  intentions of making a good, drinkable product.

Keep close watch during the autumn and early winter to see how I get on.

CUDDYBRIDGE APPLE JUICE

I produce 2 types of apple juice. Throughout the whole year I make varietal apple juice from Braeburn, Cox,Granny Smith,Golden Delicious and Bramley apples. In the winter these apples are available from the southern hemsphere and during our season I buy English Cox’s, and N. Irish Bramleys year- round.

The supply of apples is one area that I would dearly like to address and find a UK grower who could supply me, on a regular basis, with Cox -and hopefully Braeburn- although that apple is not easy to grow in the UK. My requirements are not huge in sales terms, but I do need a steady supply. Currently, all my varietal apples come from a main distributor in Edinburgh,  thence my dependancy on southern hemisphere produce.

The Scottish Borders-however attractive-are not the easiest place to get regular,small quantities direct from a grower who lives in the south east,or Anglia or Heredfordshire.

If you are a grower and want a small,but steady income throughout the year, then please contact me!

Graham Stoddart with an armful of apples