cooking apple for cheshire countryside

Good decision not to plant a Bramley.

The trees grow very quickly and reach a large size - much larger than your average apple tree.
They often do not fruit well when "restricted" by repeated hard pruning (not helped by their part-tip-bearing of fruit and bitter pit tendency; any pruning will reduce fruit production and cause bitter pit) - Bramley's much prefer to grow as a big tree.
As you say; the blossoms are also easily damaged by frost at flowerin time.
The tree can also become biennial.

Additionally, Bramley has been so widely grow for so long that the pests and diseases are getting quite good at attacking it. 150 years ago, Bramley was considered to be very disease resistant. Now it is considered to be slightly prone to disease as the diseases have evolved to specialise in attacking the huge numbers of Bramley's across the UK.

I have a M26-rootstock Bramley and it is always the first to be attacked by insects each season; the pests often leave everything else untouched!
My Bramley's branches have been so heavily damaged (twisted and split) by woolly aphids that I have cut it entirely back to the trunk to try to rebuild its structure over the next few years.

In the cooler and wetter North/NorthWest, I'd suggest shortlisting the following long-keeping, mid-late flowering, disease-resistant cookers (you can look up the varieties to see which best suit your needs):


Alfriston
Annie Elizabeth
Crawley Beauty
Lane's Prince Albert
Newton Wonder


Less good keepers with good resistance include:

Golden Noble
Grenadier
Lord Derby
Reverend Wilks

Less frost resistance but with good disease resistance and keeping:

Belle de Boskoop

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But given the cool, wet and windy climate, you may find that many varieties struggle to thrive.

Rootstocks would be either MM111, MM106 or M26.
M25 will not like the cold/wet (maybe also MM106).
M26 may not like the cold.
M9 and M27 may not like the cold and may be too slow growing and their weak (brittle) roots usually require permanent staking.

MM111 will tolerate poor climates better than most apple rootstocks (hot, cold, wet, drought), but MM111 makes quite large trees unless regularly pruned and the fruit quality is not as good as M9, M25 or MM106.

Thanks for the advice.

I was thinking of Newton Wonder but have heard it can be biennial. I may go for Crawley Beauty but am worried the flavour is not as good as a Bramley.

Since you can buy Bramleys year-round from the shop, I'm not sure why people bother growing their own Bramley.

Bramley is indeed well-flavoured - and superior to the likes of Crawley Beauty - but I think that in a very wet climate, most of the fruits would split (and rot on the tree) due to the fungal disease "scab".

Having been grown everywhere for 200 years, the diseases are now quite good at attacking Bramley.
It would be better to get a biennial crop of healthy fruit than an annual crop of useless fruit.
I actually like growing "oddball" varieties that are irregular or light cropping or with ugly fruits, because I know that most people won't want to grow them, which means that there won't be disease-infested trees of that variety nearby which could then pass on the disease to my trees.

Regarding biennial: Bramley is also quite strongly biennial. Many apple varieties will eventually become somewhat biennial unless carefully pruned and trained.

If I was in your area, the first long-keeping cooker/dual-purpose apple that I'd try would be Annie Elizabeth.
But her fruits are easily blown off before ripening if the tree is exposed to strong winds. But if you can grow Annie as a bush, with some wind shelter, she is an excellent multi-purpose apple with very long keeping and good all-round disease resistance.

Alternatively, I'd consider Belle de Boskoop, which is very disease-resistant but may succumb to frost. However, "Up North", I would not grow an early-flowering or frost-susceptible variety such as Boskoop on MM106 rootstock because MM106 rootstock encourages the tree to flower about a week earlier than the same variety on other rootstocks.

Or I'd consider Alfriston, which has good all-round disease resistance.

Maybe you should consider two bush-trees on M26 instead of one larger tree on MM111.
In any case, given the likely climate in your area, I think that your wish-list might be pushing the limits to find a tree that will give a good crop of healthy, long-keeping fruit every year.
I certainly don't bank on mine being "guaranteed perfection every year" - that's why I grow several late-keepers, so that at least one of them won't be affected by whatever mother nature has thrown at them in that season.

Personally, I'd not dare to try Newton Wonder or Lane's Prince Albert because they have a reputation for suffering from powdery mildew (admittedly a disease of dry/droughty areas). But I live in a dry area and over the years, I've had enough trees and seedlings killed or crippled by mildew that I will always demand at least some resistance to all major diseases.