Strawberries fit for a Queen are to be delivered to Buckingham Palace this week as a Diamond Jubilee gift from Britain's soft fruit growers.

A special crop of Royal Sovereign strawberries - the variety served at the 1953 Coronation banquets - has been cultivated especially for the occasion.

Royal Sovereign was a revolutionary strawberry bred in 1892 by Thomas Laxton. It was considered to be superior to other varieties because of its taste, tenderness, and brilliant scarlet skin.

A special batch of Royal Sovereigns is to be sent to the Palace in time for the weekend's Diamond Jubilee celebrations as a gift from British Summer Fruits.

And with strawberries set to play a big role in the Jubilee celebrations, at Wimbledon and during the Olympics, people can be confident there is no shortage of the fruit this year.

Laurence Olins, chairman of British Summer Fruits, said: "Consumers can be assured there will be plenty of British strawberries to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, Wimbledon, the Olympics and the rest of the summer.

"Twenty years ago the summer strawberry crop would have been decimated by the inclement weather over the past few months, but thanks to two decades of investment in protection from the elements, the entire crop is safe.

"The crop is likely to be up 10% from last year, the result of increased plantings in response to consumer demand."

Christopher Stocks, journalist and author of Forgotten Fruits, said it was incredible that the Royal Sovereign variety had survived since Victorian times.

"It's amazing, to be honest, that we have Royal Sovereign at all. It's an almost miraculous survival, and the only Victorian strawberry variety that has survived to the present day. Royal Sovereign is a wonderful example of the kind of strawberries that the Victorians loved, but it was also revolutionary in its time."