A COUPLE who have spent 50 years farming in Herefordshire have been told their apples are amongst the best in the county.

Martin and Marlene Hewitt, who farm in Much Cowarne, near Bromyard, have won an award for the second time is succession from The Trumpet and District Agricultural Society.

The couple won the Mansfield perpetual challenge cup, and named champion cider orchard.

Mr Hewitt said it's likely the competition first ran in 1926, now held biannually and sponsored by BASF Agricultural Solutions UK.

The main challenge cup and gift tokens were presented by the fruit secretary of the society Dr Jonathan Blackman at an annual dinner.

The society's autumn lunch was held at the Plough Inn, Stoke Lacy on Sunday, November 17.

The competition is open to cider apple growers who live within a 20-mile radius of The Trumpet Inn, near Ledbury.

The society can be traced back to the Second World War, when the Home Guard met in a tin shed at the side of the Trumpet pub to form the Trumpet and District Home Guard Hedging Society.

The group later became the Trumpet and District Agricultural Society.

Mr and Mrs Hewitt previously ran a dairy herd for 30 years, supplying Cadbury's and later Dairy Crest.

They then sold their pedigree herd in 1999, and in the two years that followed planted around 50 acres of cider apples under contract to Matthew Clark at Shepton Mallet, Somerset.

The contract is now held by the C&C Group and the apples go into making such well known cider brands as Blackthorn, Gaymer's Old English and Magners.