Marvels Around Martley

Don't believe everything you read in your dictionary. In mine the entry for 'cyder' reads 'Same as cider'. The entry for 'wine' is scarcely less controversial: 'The fermented juice of grapes; a liquor made from other fruits.' If you can accept that grapes are not an essential ingredient of wine, then our 'cyder' is apple wine; if you can't, then it's fermented apple juice. Authentic, old-fashioned cyder is virtually extinct. Some of the smaller manufacturers retain the old word, for example, William Gaymer's Bristol Cyder, and Chevallier's Aspall Suffolk Cyder. The latter contains a heady 7 per cent alcohol by volume, but Weston's Special Vintage Cider Reserve is a dizzying 8.2 per cent.

While being no real authority on drink, Mrs Beeton, writing in my grandmother's inter-war edition of Mrs Beeton's Family Cookery, gives a recipe for cider in which there are just two ingredients, cider apples and water, whereas the adjacent page has a recipe for apple wine, which has three ingredients: sugar, water and? cider. In other words, apple wine is 'cider squared' - a twice fermented-out cider. (By the way, the same publication suggests that one of your servants should clean the silver every Friday.) In the cyder-making process some water was added, because firstly a glutinous pulp was unworkable, and secondly even the hard-working enzymes of farm labourers would not maintain sobriety for (say) scything the corn when drinking copious quantities of a heady ferment.

Cyder was often a safer drink than water, the purity of which might not be assured. The acids in the cyder would have killed off any water-borne diseases. In 1901, when making a critical assessment of the diet offered to inmates of the Dore Workhouse, its medical officer wrote: 'Cold water is a sickly thing to have to drink, especially for agricultural people used to cider.' He may not have meant that there was anything wrong with the water, but his comment shows the ubiquitous nature of cider as a drink at that time.

As you walk through one of Bulmers' orchards, it's mind-boggling to think that the Bulmers brothers began with just one acre (0.4ha) in 1888. In fact, nowadays Herefordshire and Worcestershire's orchards only provide a fraction of the Hereford plant's capacity. The company imports a lot of apple juice concentrate from France, Normandy in particular.

Modern-day 'cider' has sugar added and - what really gets up the nose of the present-day connoisseur - it's almost certainly been fizzed up with carbon dioxide. Even the small print on a can of Bulmers (gassy) Strongbow runs 'dry cider with sugars and sweetener' because the 21st-century palate wouldn't like cyder - they should know.

Where to eat and drink

In Martley the Crown occupies a strategic spot on the homeward stretch. In Berrow Green, 1¼ miles (2km) south, is the Admiral Rodney, with a large beer garden in an elevated position. At Knightwick, still on the B4197 but near the A44, is the Talbot, an old coaching inn serving seriously good, local food. On site is its own Teme Valley Brewery, using hops grown in the valley to produce its three beers, This, That, and T'Other.

While you're there

If you have a penchant for pigs then you will regret not timing your walk to pay a visit to the Pig Pen (usually open 2-5pm only), a specialised working farm near Whitbourne. If you have children, they will enjoy trotting around the trail and play areas too.

What to look for

Martley's red sandstone St Peter's Church claims to have the country's only complete original set of six bells, having been cast in the locality in 1673. It also has some tantalisingly indiscernible medieval wall paintings, and an alabaster effigy of Sir Hugh Mortimer, Lord of Martley and Kyre, killed at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460. In Kingswood Nature Reserve you'll pass a slightly aged, life-size wood carving of a man.