The small size of the apples is not a pollination issue. Although sometimes you do get the occasional partially pollinated apple that will be lopsided or misshapen. The apples are too small because your tree is too young to support all those apples. I wouldn't have even let one apple ripen in the first year, and darn few in the second year. Apple trees don't necessarily wait until they are ready and able. I suspect next year that tree will have few if any apples. In future years you should do a considerable amount of fruit thinning. Most trees will often set way too many fruits, and some trees go absolutely overboard. Bramley is known for heavy production and so warrants careful thinning. My neighbor's Fuji tree last year had no blossoms at all, and this year is so loaded with (poor quality) fruit that branches are breaking off.
As far as pollination goes, it sounds like you are OK even with the triploid. Apples have some very stringent requirements for full pollination but always seem to manage somehow. I'm often surprised how they're able to pull it off.

Hi, Andrew. I believe tcstoehr to be spot on. Overloading an apple tree leads to poor fruit quality and biennial bearing. Thinning is the most difficult task for me and some others, as we would like to see our trees laden just like in the catalog pictures. Thin, thin, thin.

Also, while Charlie is doing a fine job of pollinating the triploid, if you want him to produce a good crop as well, he'll need another playmate. A third tree would also provide you some pollination insurance for the triploid.

One additional concern: The poor fruit quality and the curled new growth open up the possibility of insufficient fertility. I recommend that you take a sample of 25 or so leaves and send them into the laboratory for analysis. They may be nitrogen deficient or, less likely, lacking in boron or some other important nutrient. Order the full work-up.

Finally, make sure your trees are adequately irrigated.

Misterbaby.

Hi Andrew. I agree that you have too much fruit on your young tree and that thinning would be sensible. You can still use that small fruit if you pick it all off and use it to make apple jelly.

However, with all due respect, I don't think misterbaby's advice is likely to help you much in the UK situation. It is very unlikely that you have any sort of soil defficiency in a garden in Derby which would affect a Bramley - unless your house is built on an old industrial site. Bramley is an easy, trouble-free and common tree which will grow just about anywhere over here and the leaf curling is far more likely to be due to the aphids than an esoteric mineral defficiency, especially as you say it was on new growth. As to irrigation, as long as you gave the tree a few good long drinks in its early days it will be highly unlikely ever to need articifcial help again in our climate. Sending leaves off for analysis would be overkill imo. Regarding pollination, if you live in a typical UK situation there will probably be plenty of apple trees lurking all over the neighbourhood. I'd just give it a bit longer before you start to worry.

Thanks for the information - that's been just so useful... I kind of just stuck the Bramley in this year and didn't expect much of a result. I'm glad the polination situation doesn't seem to be such an issue. I had wondered about the crop size, as foliage is a bit sparse, but frankly I wanted to see if any fruit would set at all, and then expected them to drop off (you see, I've kinda fixated on the pollen thing).

I never really gave much thought to the fact that The Charles Ross wouldn't pollinate well from the Bramley (duh !) - No excuse I did genetics at university, but never really got to grips with plant Biology !

My mother has a fantastic 40 year old "Newton Wonder" which fruits by the ton,(typically 5 washing baskets every year of 1lb plus apples!). I originaly wanted that instead of the Bramley, but couldn't find one - I'd still love to get one, so maybe this is my excuse to sell the idea of a third apple tree to the wife.

I'll check out the nutrient level in the garden - the soil's pretty good where the tree is, but you never know. Certainly the Charlie seems very happy - but that's on the other side of the garden. I might shove in some nitrate anyway

Is shade much of an issue for apples ? I'm assuming that one needs a reasonable light level for fruiting - anything in my garden has to compete with a 200 year oak tree - My apples are reasonably distant, but I had thought of something on a medium or dwarfing root stock closer to the big oak if only for the pollination potential.

Thanks once again for your help - I can see I'm going to be a regular visitor.

Andrewderby, you say your mom has a tree you want but couldn't find. It occurred to me you have an ideal solution right there. Just take a few scions from her tree and graft them to your bramley. Instant cross pollination! And some of those Newton Wonder apples you wanted.

Hi Girlbug - sounds interesting - given that my most subtle approach to foliage usually involves a felling Axe - is this something I can do without trashing my tree ? how would I go about doing this ??

Sunlight is very important. I have a Redfree apple tree that I dutifully thinned and bagged this spring. Then the tree dropped about 80% of the apples I had left. That left them very much thinned. A wild grape vine grew up around one of the branches. I cut the vine out in mid-August. I ended up with huge apples, except on the branch where the grape vine had been. The apples on that branch were only about 1 1/2 inch or smaller in diameter. Northwoodswis

Thought as much about the sunlight.Both the existing trees are in quite open spaces - but if I put in a third, I'd probably have to put it in a shadier spot thanks to the oak tree.

A lot of people gave you advice to thin but not sure if anybody told you HOW to thin. Perhaps you're aware already but if not...the tree will put out clusters of 5-6 tiny fruit. When the fruit is quite small, about 1/4 to 1/2 inch in size, remove all but the biggest healthiest one. This will ensure fruit every year. If not you'll get an extremely heavy year followed by almost nothing.

Thanks for that Kjskjs - It's safe to assume ignorance on my behalf - looks like I've got to be ruthless ! thanks for the advice