Lord Derby is a traditional large English cooking apple, ripening in the mid to late season - from mid-September to early October.
Lord Derby fills a useful gap in the culinary apple calendar, arriving after the early cookers such as Keswick Codlin and Grenadier, and before the late cookers such as Bramley. This is not a variety for winter storage but the apples can be kept for a month or so in a cool place.
The Victorian author Hogg rated Lord Derby as an "excellent culinary apple". The flavour is nicely acidic if picked young, but milder if picked when fully ripe (at which point the skin develops a more yellow hue).
Although usually considered a cooking apple, many Lord Derby enthusiasts regard it as an excellent sharp eating apple too.
**All prices include delivery. We offer a discount on orders of multiple bare-root trees for delivery at the same time - this will be shown at the checkout.
Delivery period: Pot-grown trees can be delivered from September onwards. Bare-root trees can be delivered from mid-November onwards. Within those periods you can specify your preferred month of delivery during the checkout process. It is best to order as soon as you can to ensure items are reserved for you.
*Mature heights: Height shown is the approximate height of the tree when mature (after 5-10 years), not the height when supplied. See photos of trees as supplied. Actual mature heights may vary considerably dependent on your local conditions and training and pruning regime.
Stock availability: Items showing as 'sold out' will probably be available again next season. If you would like to reserve in advance use our enquiry form - this does not commit you to anything.
Lord Derby is self-sterile and needs to be pollinated by another tree of a different variety nearby.
Our online pollination checker lists suitable pollination partners for this variety.
More advice about pollination.
Lord Derby is a very easy apple tree for the garden, and like many Victorian culinary apples it has excellent natural disease resistance.
Planting instructions.
Pruning instructions.
Cheshire, 19th century.
