Looks like they are malus sylvestris. In other words plain wild apples, not feral, with something giving them red spots.....
The old road they grow alongside IS very old indeed. So the trees could be at least three hundred years old...or bird sown descendants of the originals.
Pretty gnarly anyway, and in a rather windswept spot, so rather stunted.
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I was struck by how similar they looked to ours. Not many red spotted yellow apples around.
Lovely to have wild crab apples nearby, and I like the sound of preserving them in vodka!! Do you ever make crab apple jelly?? I remember Laura making some years ago and straining it through pantihose!
Happy New Year to you!
Peter, I make crabapple jelly every year. When combined with other fruits I make jelly without over squeezing the jelly bag, sieve the pulp (thanks to yeractual for the wooden pestle used for pushing it through the sieve!) then make fruit cheese.
I'll have to change the name now to Wildapple jelly!!
My elder son lives in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where it is believed the first apples grew. 'Almaty'means 'Grandfather of apples' and there are apple statues and water-features in the town as well as a tremendous range of apples, huge and small, in the Green Market. I'll ask him if he can track down any of yours and see if they have a name.
RR, Yes please!
Nice blog, Gwynneth. Still not sure where you live though! We have a very old Golden Noble apple tree in our garden, must have been there since long before we arrived here in 1980.
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