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   Normandy Orchard

TTB started planting the Normandy Drive community orchard in December 2009, together with help from Councillor Mole and Dacorum Borough Council.
See the Berkhamsted Today press release

Funding for the trees was provided from the ward budget allocated to Cllr Mole.

The site now has:
Several apple trees including a local variety, the Lane's Prince Albert, Conference pears, Morello cherries and plum trees. A walnut tree is to be planted later this year.

The Normandy Drive orchard is on the left side of the field as you enter the park at the end of Normandy Drive. It can also be accessed from the end of the Dellfield allotment site. The fruit will belong to the Berkhamsted and Northchurch community, so is free for anyone to take - provided it is for their own consumption!

Orchards are part of Berkhamsted's heritage. Up until the first half of the last century much of the area around St John's Well Lane, Berkhamsted formed part of Lane's Nurseries, where they had 60 acres of orchards, known for their own variety the Lane's Prince Albert.

Pressure on land for new housing and other developments alongside the importation of cheap fruit from abroad caused the loss of these and many other small orchards. Existing orchards remain prime targets for development.

The story of the Lane's Prince Albert apple is that in 1841 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert changed coaches in Berkhamsted at the very time a Mr Squire was planting a seedling apple tree in his garden. Mr Squire named his new variety 'Victoria and Albert'. A few years later Lane's Nurseries began to grow the variety commercially and renamed it 'Lane's Prince Albert'