Lord Lambourne apple

Malus domestica

Popular garden variety, many uses, good balance of sweet and sharp

Lord Lambourne apple photo tape

Parentage: James Grieve x Worcester Pearmain
Origin: England
Introduced: 1907
Season: Sep-Nov
Apple cultivar ID: 104100


Lord Lambourne was introduced in 1907 and is very much in the tradition of classic English high-quality dessert apples. It has the pleasing uniform shape - round, and not too flattened - and typical orange flush over green, with a hint of russet. On biting into a Lord Lambourne the first thing that strikes you is the juice and acidity. The flesh is creamy-white and quite crisp, and the flavour is pleasantly strong.

It is a fair bet that such a high-quality aromatic apple will have Cox's Orange Pippin somewhere in its ancestry but the link is not certain. The immediate parentage is James Grieve and Worcester Pearmain, and the parentage of James Grieve is not known although Cox is a contender. If so, then the aromatic flavour of Cox is rather more apparent in Lord Lambourne than in James Grieve, although the James Grieve acidity is still prominent.

Lord Lambourne has two siblings which share the same parentage - Katy and Elton Beauty.  However Lord Lambourne is the odd one out of the three, since Katy and Elton Beauty both have the sharp zing of James Grieve and the up-front summery strawberry flavours of Worcester Pearmain.  Lord Lambourne offers quite a different taste experience, with more depth and subtlety.

Another interesting comparison is with Topaz, a very modern variety and distantly related to Lord Lambourne. Topaz arrives much later in the season but like Lord Lambourne it has some of the classic English aromatic flavour, overlaid with plenty of juicy acidity. Despite being developed nearly a century apart, both these varieties are (arguably) much better apples than their common ancestor James Grieve.

Like many of the James Grieve offspring, Lord Lambourne is an easy apple variety to grow in the garden, and produces good crops.  It is also (like Katy) fairly easy to find in the UK at farmers markets, and occasionally in supermarkets.

Lord Lambourne is, along with Ellisons Orange, one of the earliest of the aromatic English-style apples, and whilst it does not have the complexity of the later-arriving varieties it is nonetheless a pleasing apple in its own right.

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Apple Tree Register

Do you have a tree of this variety in your garden or orchard? If so please register the details on our Apple Tree Register here.



Relationships to other apple varieties

Offspring of this variety:

  • Rajka (distant descendant)
  • Topaz (distant descendant)

Parents and other ancestors of this variety:

Siblings of this variety (same parentage):

Discuss Lord Lambourne in our Forums

31 Aug 2009 04:18Kevin Hauser
In our hot, dry climate Lord Lamborne is very productive, but has terrible problems with cracking the last two years. It is on timed drip irrigation and we have no rain through the summer, so I don't think its from uneven watering. Perhaps this is just a reaction to our climate, and if so, I'm sad to have to pull it out.
04 May 2009 23:13Steve Wilde
Try Morrisons Supermarket, £4.99 at the moment.
19 Oct 2008 13:29Timothy Anthony Collins
I have a bizarre situation at work in White Roding. 4 years ago, I discovered that my employer has a Lord Lambourne apple growing on her grounds. This was because I found its fruit, which I had formally identified. Since that time, we have had no fruit from this tree whatsoever. This may have coincided with the death of a new fruit tree which was planted around the time we discovered the Lord Lambourne tree, but which subsequently perished. Please can you help. Which apple varieties are good pollinators of 'Lord Lambourne'? Which pollination group do they belong to?

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Where to buy apple trees

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