Cider and Folklore

Unlike beer, cider has a neglected history.l However the word is spelt, cider, an alcoholic drink made from the fermented juice of apples, has been known in Great Britain for many centuries. How early cider was made in England is not known but the first documentary evidence of cider production dates from the thirteenth century in Norfolk and by the following century there are references to cider-making in Berkshire, Hampshire, Kent and Sussex as well as in the west country in Dorset, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Somerset. In the seventeenth century more serious attention was paid both to the cultivation of cider apples and to the methods of manufacture and, as a product of the growth of English nationalism, cider-making appears to have expanded. The records of the excise show that cider production was substantial in the eighteenth century. Consumption remained high in the first halfof the ninteenth century but thereafter, in common with the consumption of other alcoholic drinks, declined as a result of the rising expectations of the working class, the temperance movement and the campaign against cider truck, which unlike industrial truck, did not become illegal until the Act of 1887

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