The Mighty Press

Home made scotch eggs every Saturday

Hedger’s cider house, just off the A38 to the north of Redhill and run by Tom and Jo Vowles. We have Tom’s cider on offer ranging from 5% and carbonated to specials such as Double fermented, Triple vintage, Apple and Blackberry,

The food menu ranges from pizzas with a twist, burgers and Jo’s home cooked specials - take a look at the menu page.

They have bands on every other Saturday, sometimes with over 200 people turning up. On a sunny day, it’s very relaxing to sit on one of the large tables situated in the orchard.  

 Tom has been making cider since 2017 and the cider barn is, essentially, a retirement project. A former stonemason, carpenter and builder for 30 years, Tom has self-built a very impressive and cosy cider house on the family farm, the latter now converted to industrial usage. The excellent menu is the work of Jo, also recently retired from being the south-west clinical nurse manager for the Marie Curie charity. Such is the popularity of the place that it’s best to book ahead if a table in the evening is required. 

The mighty press was bought at auction and is thought to have been used by Coate’s Cider. It can take 1.5 tonnes of macerated apples in a single load and squashes the pulp at 3000 pounds (1.3 tons) per square inch, resulting in 800 litres of juice per pressing. Fermentation starts naturally but, quite soon, a commercial yeast is added to ensure consistency from year to year; a wise precaution since, as some of us other commercial cider-makers can attest, some “interesting” flavours and aromas can develop in some years if a spontaneous fermentation is relied upon. The current production level is at 5000 gallons per year, but the plan is to at least double this. In 2017, Tom planted an orchard directly outside the cider house, containing more than forty varieties of apples, some quite rare. This orchard, being quite young, does not yet supply all of his requirements so other orchards are used in the Cheddar, Wookey and Abbots Leigh areas.

The naming of the product, Hedger’s, is derived from the fact that Tom has been traditional hedge layer since the age of 16.

Landlord and Landlady