Golden Ball
Syn. Devonshire Golden Ball, Neverblight, Polly, Go Boyn, Reynold’s Peach 
 
Sauce / Vintage Cider
 
1800’s Devon 
 
Self-Sterile (needs a pollinator)
 
Late Harvester – November
 
Now used as a cider apple but in 1800’s England it was more popularly used in the kitchen to make delicious sauces. 
 
In Hugh Ronalds, Pyrus Malus Brentfordiensis: or, a concise description of selected apples, has an image of an 1831 golden ball apple where he goes on to declare it ‘a very useful apple.’ Hogg’s 1851 entry he talks about its golden skin being flushed carmine & its qualities as ‘a very beautiful sauce apple’. He later states that ‘the tree grows well & bears freely’. Fast forward to 1873 & Scott’s entry was rather short & sweet on this variety, he just states; ‘Devonshire Golden Ball, 1 size, 1st quality, January to February. Globular, and straw coloured; one of our best sauce apples.’ In a later entry he also mentions another Devonshire variety he also recommends for sauces - the ever popular ‘Sops-in-Wine’. Nonetheless it is a vigorous, disease-free variety which is well situated to our wet climate here in the south west. This variety has become very popular in neighbouring Dorset where old specimens can still be seen happily growing in old traditional orchards.