Mark Lawton's Generalist's Repository

Well, we have done “taste the flowers” original, so now we decided it was time for “taste the flowers revisited!”

What the hell are we talking about here you may ask?

If you go here, you will see exactly what we are talking about!

Now you have come back here hopefully, we’ll tell you what we did on our day out.

Wifey and I decided to go on the “Hereford Cider Route” which is basically a run around Herefordshire tasting, and buying some cider and perry from various cider establishments. They provide containers at a charge, but you can reuse them lots of times, thus saving money if you want to.

Firstly we went off to Bewdley from the Walsall area, and we admired the river Severn, enjoyed the nice quaint shops, and the highlight was the museum, which is free to get in, and has some old exhibits based upon the local history, and lots of nice gardens at the bottom end, with some old trees, and a large pond or pool. It is well worth a visit. In the garden there is also a Magnolia Grandiflora, which is a favorite of mine, having large, highly scented creamy flowers around six to eight inches across.

Onwards we went to the first cider maker on out list, which was Gwatkin Cider, Moorhampton Park Farm, Abbey Dore, Hereford, HR2 0AL. The cider was quite good, ranging from sweet to dry in about five stages, and they had some perry too. I did buy some cider, perry, and a bottle of wine; however the friendliness and customer service was absolutely rock bottom! Needless to say we won’t be going there again!

They had a stall on Lincoln Christmas market where we saw them first; and the people in charge may have been different, but whoever it was who served us didn’t seem to make conversation with us at all!

So a disappointing start!

Not for long though, as I suggested we head here… Broome Farm, Peterstow, Ross-on-Wye, HR9 6QG.

We were not disappointed!

Mike Johnson, “the boss” greeted us heartily, and everyone was pleasant, offering us free samples galore! We bought a 5 litre “bag in a box” pack, and some other odds and ends. The cider tasted great, and it was presented nicely.

At this point I would like to add that Mike Johnson knew of Jim Franklin (featured in Taste the flowers) and said he was a very nice man, and a first class ambassador of true traditional cider and perry. (His perry was my favorite of all time 100% for quality, taste, and value, and at 6 to 6.5 % ABV fairly strong if you drink enough of it, lol)

To boot, they also do a massive cream tea. We recommend in future to share a cream tea, as they are a meal in themselves, with lots of jam, cream, and two home-made scones that were really newly made, and fresh. A tad expensive, but indeed an experience.

I will now show you some pictures…

The cidery…

Quite a place! Then we were asked if we wanted to we could have a look at the animals…

I would certainly recommend this as a nice day out, or part thereof. Afterwards we visited Ross-On-Wye, and had a walk around the many nice shops and historic buildings in the town.

After this we wound our way home along the country route past Leominster, through Tenbury Wells, and back through Bewdley. This was the best way avoiding the motorway, and a longer journey, and also avoiding the stop-start nature of the motorway, and having far more interesting scenery to look at on the way home.

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