The Styre originated in the Forest of Dean, where it grew well on the local thin limestone soils: in common with a handful of other old apple varieties, it could be simply propagated without grafting, by striking root from branches pulled from the tree's crown.

John Philips, in his 1708 poem Cyder, refers to it as "Stirom, firmest fruit", and describes it as making a long-lasting, smooth, yet deceptively strong drink.

[2] The pioneer American pomologist and politician William Coxe, Jr. grew a number of specimens of the Styre in his orchard in Burlington, New Jersey, and commented in 1817 that the variety was even then "supposed to have passed the zenith of its perfection, and to be rapidly declining [in Herefordshire]", though his own trees attracted attention for their luxuriant growth.

It has been retrospectively suggested that this was because the Styre was a triploid apple, and in later years lacked suitable cross-pollinators, meaning that it fruited poorly.

It was last known of by staff of the Long Ashton Research Station at a farm in Aylburton in the late 1950s,[7] and what was said to be the final recorded tree of the variety, at Halmore in the Vale of Berkeley, was not cut down until 1968.