Luton orchard map
Did fruit trees once grow in your Luton neighbourhood? Is there an orchard near you today? We're setting out to uncover the town’s fruit-growing past and present, and we need your help.
The map - 34 Historical Locations within Luton that may still have trees today (+18 just outside Luton)
We found these locations on old maps logged as orchards, and from satellite images it looks like there could still be trees.
Do you live near one of these locations? Can you help us check if there are still apples, pears or plums today? This process is is also called 'ground truthing' (Wikipedia).
To see the locations, check the map. Quote the number with your result.
The shortlist
This list contains 34 locations within Luton that could still have fruit trees. Click on the link to go straight to the location on the map.
We're updating the list as results come in.
Green: confirmed positive match: fruit trees found
Red: confirmed negative match: no fruit trees found
ArchAI4287182 - map link - Stockwood Park - Result: TBC possible inaccurate location
ArchAI791382 - map link - Butterfield Green Road - Result:
BEDF_Hist1700 - map link - Castle Street/Matalan - Result:
BEDF_Hist439 - map link - Jonathan Henry Place - Result:
BEDF_Hist447 - map link- Nunnery Lane - Result:
BEDF_Hist448 - map link- Nunnery Lane - Result:
BEDF_Hist454 - map link- Butterfield Green Road - Result: Positive, some veteran trees remaining, site visit TBC
BEDF_Hist457 - map link - Near Marsh House - Result: Negative
BEDF_Hist77 - map link- Ruthin Close - Result:
BEDF_Hist82 - map link - Co-op Sports Ground, Stockingstone Road - Result:
BEDF_Hist83 - map link - Farley Hill - Near Wolston Close - Result:
LO106 - map link - Anthony Gardens - Result:
LO108 - map link - Trowbridge Gardens - Result:
LO113 - map link - Near Bradgers Hill - Result:
LO114 - map link - Clinton Avenue - Result:
LO118 - map link - Near Hayhurst Road - Result: may have been recently demolished? TBC
LO119 - map link - Lothair Road - Result:
LO131 - map link - Gayland Avenue - Result:
LO133 - map link - Hitchin Road - Result:
LO135 - map link - Compton Ave/Capron Rd - Result
LO140 - map link - Arundel Road
LO144 - map link - Tenby Drive
LO146 - map link - Tenby Drive
LO147 - map link - Bishopscote Road
LO148 - map link - Kingsley Road - Result: on satellite view, this looks incredibly promising!
LO153 - map link - Howard Close
LO159 - map link - Gardenia Avenue
LO160 - map link - Gardenia Avenue
LO170 Near Kilns - map link - Hitchin Road
LO171 Near Peoples Park - map link - Clarendon Road - Result: Looks very promising.
LO187 Stockwood Park - map link - Result: Fruit Trees confirmed (new plantings, 40 years approx)
LO202 Jolly Topers - map link - Result:
LO203 Leagrave strange fm - map link - Leagrave High Street - Result
LO207 Holy Tri Grav - map link - Trinity Road - Result: probably negative
18 locations just outside Luton
These locations are currently outside the scope of the search. But if you're interested, here they are!
LOA02 Home Farm - map link
LOA03 Home Farm- map link
LOA19 Luton Hoo WG- map link
LOA38 Woods Baptist C- map link
LOA28 Slip End- map link
LOA29 Slip End- map link
LOA30 Slip End- map link
LOA32 Slip End- map link
LOA33 Slip End- map link
LOA20 Pepperstock- map link
LOA42 Wandon End- map link
LOA43 Chalton - map link
LOA45 Chalton - map link
LOA46 Chalton - map link
LOA47 Chalton - map link
Key to map
Orchard locations either have a green or yellow border, which means:
yellow outlines show historical orchards from OS maps surveyed between 1878 and 1922
green outlines show orchard sites confirmed to exist today
blue outlines show historical orchards that look promising after assessing the satellite image
Orchard ID codes start with letters as follows:
LO stands for Luton Orchards
LOA stands for Luton Orchards Adjacent, which means they're just outside the current municipal town boundary
ArchAI stands for Luton Orchards that were identified using an image recognition software tool as part of a previous project (Orchards East)
BEDF_ Hist stands for Luton Orchards that were identified as part of a previous project (Orchards East)
Instructions
How to 'groundtruth' a location
Groundtruthing is a fancy word for going and checking a location in person. To help us find if there are still orchards on the locations that were historically mapped as orchards, start by checking the blue outlined orchard location using the links on this page or the Google map.
Then visit the location in person (no trespassing, please). Can you see any fruit trees? Do you know the owner or occupier of the land? Do they remember anything about the location in terms of fruit trees?
Now make your assessment.
Positive match
Are there still fruit trees present? These may be visibly old trees (with trunks as large as a bucket), or newly planted. If you think it's a fruit tree, let us know.
Negative match
Likewise, if you can see there is nothing left at the location, let us know that it is a negative result.
How and by when to submit your result
Submit your results by email to konni@lutonorchards.org or fill in the contact form on this website. We’re hoping to finish this step of the work by 1 June 2024.
How we arrived at the list of 32 possible locations
What we've done so far
We've found more than 150 sites labelled with the orchard symbol (see Fig. 1) on old Ordnance Survey maps of Luton.
We plotted the historic orchards onto a Google Map, so you can see where they used to be in the Luton of today. The map also includes a number of existing orchards in the town.
We know most or all of the fruit trees disappeared long ago, but we want to trace any that may remain.
Natural England defines an orchard as 5 or more fruit and nut trees with crowns less than 20 metres apart, but even if there's only one veteran fruit tree left, it’ll be worth knowing, as it might be an interesting or even a lost variety.
How we graded the satellite images
LO209
1 - no trees. Houses and driveways cover the plot. The small lawned area does not look like it has any trees on it.
LO154
2 - maybe trees remaining. They could be in the top-right corner. However, this is unlikely, because the buildings look quite recent and it'd be fair to assume the site was cleared completely before construction.
LO148
3 - looks promising. Different deciduous trees grow along the entire plot. The relatively loose canopy structure hints at them being fruit trees.
How we gathered the historic map locations
To search for orchards that Luton would have had in the past, we used several versions of the OS County Series at Six-Inch to the mile / 1:10,560, dating between 1878 and 1922.
The OS County Series is the most detailed topographic mapping that covers all of Great Britain, although the later revisions were only carried out on some areas. Luton was last fully surveyed in 1922 and small parts of it around Dunstable Road were reviewed again in 1937. In detail, the survey dates for Luton were:
1878 - OS County Series Epoch 1 - a comple survey of the Great Britain
1900 - OS County Series Epoch 2 - revision
1922 - OS County Series Epoch 3 - revision, this is where most of Luton's historic orchards appeared on the map
1937 - OS County Series - revision Epoch 4 - Only a small area towards Dunstable was reviewed
You can read more about OS mapping at the National Library of Scotland.
We're still working out how to make the historic maps in the context of Luton Orchards viewable online. You can see this test of the 1878 Luton OS map with Luton Orchards plotted (reused with permission from the National Library of Scotland).
We'll soon include more maps from the 1960s, who should become available in Summer 2024.