A brief History

Northdale Horticulture was established in 1988 as a work based training centre for adults with a learning disability. The charity initially provided part-time work for 6 trainees. The original work activities were focused around horticulture and woodwork with the service being based in the grounds of a local disused maternity hospital (The Mount, Northallerton). At that time there were few work opportunities for people with a learning disability apart from open employment, something that very few people would have been able to achieve at the time. The service soon became very popular with those attending and numbers attending the service quickly expanded to 18 service users a day. (Today the service offers 25 full-time places with a total of 50 service users attending the service in any one working week)

As a consequence of NHS closures in the mid 1990’s Northdale was forced to consider relocation or closure. In 1997 Northdale Horticulture launched the Northdale Appeal. The Northdale Appeal launched with the express intention of raising the funds required to relocate the charity. (In total the Northdale Appeal raised in excess of £740,000)

The commitment and hard work of the service users, committee and staff of Northdale at that time resulted in the charity having sufficient funds to purchase a nursery site on Yafforth Road , Northallerton. In the November of 1999 the Northdale team moved into their new purpose built nursery and workshop.