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Whin Hill Cider Trip | NORFOLK NIPS
A farewell and a new beg
The Coasthopper Bus, a good place to be on a
cold Saturday morning such as the one before
Norwich beer festival. It was certainly popular.
At Hunstanton Cliffs the driver had to check the
number of passengers already standing before
letting anyone else board. At Wells the weather
was no better. It was running down the North
Sea, across the harbour and driving up the
narrow streets of the town. No matter, across
the car park, Whin Hill’s Ciderworks beckoned
with something special on offer.
We wondered whether change was afoot. Jim
Ferguson and Pete Lynn, Whin Hill’s founders
had recently sold the cider company to Mark
and Lisa Jarvis. The cider had always been
pressed at their orchard near Stanhoe, however
an ancient press had been a feature of their
Stearman’s Yard premises for as long as I’d been
going there. All I’d ever seen it used as was as a
convenient ledge to put a cider glass down on a
warm summer’s day when outside seems the
best place to drink. This time was different, the
press had been restored to working order
(apparently with surprisingly less work than may
have been anticipated) and was promised to be
back in action for the first time in more years
than anybody could remember.
On arrival, having partaken of a particularly
welcome glass of freshly mulled cider, it became
clear what was afoot. Apples from the orchard
were being put through a scratter of similarly
ancient vintage. A scratter is the equipment used
to break the fruit up into a coarse pulp. This is
done between toothed and flat rollers, hence
the term cider mill. The scratter was fitted with a
belt wheel on the side to drive it; indeed a
reproduction Victorian poster on the wall advertising
a similar machine was promoting it as
being suitable for steam or horse power (and
could be conveniently operated by two boys).
On this occasion, it was being hand cranked. It
was hard work. This being an old and well used
machine its bearings were not at their best. Two
varieties of apple were being pressed. The
Brown’s Apples were large, soft and went
through easily. The others, Michelins, were a
different story, they were small and hard, being
described as bullets; if too many were put
through, the scratter stopped dead in your
hands. Not much fun. Predictably, everybody
through the gates was “offered” a chance to give
a turn of the handle. Most didn’t keep it up long.
“All I’d ever seen it used as
was as a convenient ledge to
put a cider glass down on a
warm summer’s day when
outside seems the best place
to drink. This time was
different, the press had been
restored to working order...”
From there the pulp was taken to the press
where another surprise awaited. Instead of using
conventional nylon ‘horsehairs’ (the porous
cloths used to hold the pomace as the juice
drains away), the more traditional straw was
being used. This is a very traditional process
whereby each layer of straw used to build the
cheese (successive layers of pulp and filtration
medium) is put together by hand, a laborious
process. A recent visit to one of the last straw
pressers remaining in the West Country
suggested that the last straw, so to speak, was
the introduction of the combine harvester
which, apparently, leaves straw too short to be
useful for pressing. Back at Wells, the apple juice
gushing from the press was, having had a few
surreptitious tasters, agreeably tasty. Jim reckoned
that considerably less juice was being
26 | SPRING 2013