Farmhouse Kitchen produces Percy Special Christmas Pudding

Nov 21 2009 by Brian Daniel, The Journal

A NORTH East businesswoman whose family has links to the Dukes of Northumberland has come up with a tasty way of celebrating a special anniversary.

Heather Foggon, 49, who runs The Chirnells Farmhouse Kitchen, near Thropton in Northumberland, has come up with the Percy Special Christmas Pudding, to mark this year’s 700th anniversary of dukes and duchesses living at Alnwick Castle.

The Percy Special is the name of a drink dukes have been known to enjoy, and therefore named after their family.

Heather has adapted a recipe for Christmas pudding which has been in her family more than 100 years to include the blend of cherry brandy and whisky in equal quantities which make up the Percy Special.

Her family has long enjoyed close links with the Percys.

Heather’s late grandmother Ella Easton worked as a cook at the castle for the current duke’s father in the late 1970s and early 1980s while her late grandfather John Easton worked as a night watchman at the castle around the same time. Her father Jimmy Easton, 72, who lives at South Ditchburn, was close friends with the old duke while a farm manager at West Ditchburn. Jimmy used to go out hunting with the then duke and Heather remembers him coming to the house when she was a young girl.

With celebrations having taken place at the castle this year to mark seven centuries since it came into the ownership of the Percys, and given her family’s close association with past dukes, Heather felt it would be nice to mark the milestone.

She said: “I decided I would do something different to celebrate the anniversary.