WHETHER good for eating, cooking, or juicing, all apples were celebrated at a stately home near Droitwich this weekend.

Hanbury Hall's Apple Weekend was a tasty success that celebrated the fruit in all its forms.

Stalls selling apples, apple trees, juice and cider joined the usual produce and plant stalls at the hall and people could discover how to make apple juice and learn about how cider is made.

Senior gardener Caroline Beacall said the majority of the apples at the hall were grown in orchards on the land that has been growing apples since 1985.

"Our apples are all organic. We've had a smaller crop this year but last year we had a huge crop, so it evens out," she said.

"We have many different varieties of apple here and we're also selling our honey, which is made by the 18 hives that we have on site.

"The event is really just about celebrating the apple at this time of year. Despite the rain in the morning we've had a lot of people come out, and more people should come as the weather gets better."

Also taking part in the Apple Weekend was Pershore College.

The horticultural college has been producing its own range of juices, ciders and perrys for a number of years.

Richard Toft, development manager, said: "We've had a lot of success with our products. We now produce more than 40,000 bottles of juices — including apple, raspberry and plum — and cider and perry each year.

"Certain shops have a demand for apples of a certain size, shape and colour so we take the ones that are wasted and don't make the shelves, and we turn them in to drinks. A lot of apples would get thrown away if we didn't use them so instead of seeing them go to waste we use our apple juice making plant to create the juice. Although the plant is at the college, it is staffed by paid workers, but we like to employ ex-students and help the college in that way too. The students at the college who are studying commercial horticulture also get to see first hand how to make drinking products such as the ones we produce."

Children at the Chantry School in Martley near Worcester also held their own Applefest on Saturday.

Children got the chance to see how a Victorian apple press worked, to ride on vintage tractors and how to make their own juice.