It may be 3,400 miles from New York, but schoolgirl Alice Smith had a shock when she found a ‘Big Apple’ in Lambley, near Nottingham.
Thirteen-year-old Alice found the whopping 1.5 lbs apple – the same as around four Bramley apples – on a tree in her grandparents’ garden.
"It’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen," Alice told the Nottingham Evening Post. "I got it down with a net, but nearly dropped it because it was heavy."
But apple experts said the Smiths shouldn’t be surprised if another apple pipped this one in terms of size.
Caroline Wright, senior lecturer in horticulture at Nottingham Trent University’s school of animal, rural and environmental sciences, believed the apple was of the Howgate Wonder cooking apple variety.
She added that the rainy summer may have caused the fruit to swell.
But the Smiths are convinced their apple is something special – though they still plan to turn it into a pie.
The heaviest apple on record weighed 4 lb 1 oz and was grown by Chisato Iwasaki at his apple farm in Hirosaki City, Japan, in 2005, according to the Guinness Book of Records.