CHEPSTOW’S seventh annual apple day at the Drill Hall was a great success.

Crowded from the time it opened at 11am, nearly half a ton of 15 varieties of locally grown apples were sold to eager customers. Ashmead’s Kernel, a variety that originated in Gloucester in 1700, was by far the favourite.

The event is organised by Chepstow Town Council and Transition Chepstow to promote appreciation of the 200 apple trees they have planted around the town to form community orchards.

Hundreds of visitors saw apple pressing and cider making demonstrations and many brought bags of their own apples to be pressed into juice which they took away in a variety of containers.

There were games, quizzes and apple craft activities for children, cider and apple juice tasting and sales, apple identification by the March Apple network expert Mike Porter, and a competition in which visitors were asked to identify 15 of the 72 apple varieties on exhibition from photographs.

One talented youngster Herbie Perry scored 13 out of 15, the highest score yet in the competition.

There was a disappointing number but a very high standard of entries to the cookery competition and Ned Heywood cut the longest single length of peel from an apple with a record-breaking 127 inches, 30 inches longer than the runner-up.