CIDER MAKERS have welcomed a stunning year for apples, with hundreds of kilos of fruit already donated.

Old Town craft cider makers Circle Cider accept donations of apples from hundreds of allotment-holders and gardeners each year.

In exchange for the apples, they are offered free cider or 12p for each kilo of the fruit.

Since Monday, almost 700 kilos of apples have been brought to the firm, director Kaye Howard said.

Kaye, 37, who runs the company with husband Nick, said: “If we were doing it ourselves it would mean visiting two or three people’s orchards. You’re talking about up to three days’ work saved.”

The apples will be used to make the company’s Roundabout Cider at their Westmead lock-up.

“We take all sorts of apples,” said Kaye. “Cooking apples, eating apples, crab apples and windfall. And we like pears as well.”

Once pressed, the juice is blended by Nick to get Roundabout’s distinctive medium flavour.

How long it takes to ferment depends on the weather, Kaye said. With luck, the cider will be ready by Christmas. “But if it’s quite a warm autumn it could be sooner.”

Circle Cider has been running since 2011. It was set up after founder Nick Howard lost his job and decided to turn his cider-making hobby into a business.

Wife and co-director Kaye said: “We’re making a product from something that would normally be chucked out.

“It’s really nice to see people come behind us and donate apples, seeing something positive happen in Swindon.”

The couple’s cider is on sale at Okus Convenience Store, Wood Street’s Magnum Wine and in Helen Browning’s Chop House.

They have been at fairs and parties almost every weekend this summer. The pair will be at the Wroughton Late Summer Picnic next weekend serving their cider.

Across the South West, gardeners have been speaking of a bumper apple harvest.

Matthew Oates, nature specialist at Rodbourne-based charity the National Trust, put the decent crop down to good weather at key moments in the year.

He said: “We had a fine spring, with good weather when the apple trees were in blossom. It meant good pollination weather. Then we had useful rains to swell the fruits. Crab apples were also prolific.”

Matthew, who lives near Stroud, said that this was the third good apple year in a row.

For more about giving your apples to Circle Cider, visit: www.circlecider.com.