Fruit bushes/trees to make a living fence?

I’ve just posted this question over at UKVegGardeners but thought I’d post it here too – all suggestions very gratefully received!

I’ve not really grown any fruit before but have big plans for 2011 (don’t we all?).

As well as getting some (currently on order) trees in and containers of soft berries etc, I’ve had an idea to kill two birds with one stone. We need a new divider between our garden and our neighbours – there hasn’t been a fence up to now but I want to discourage our dog & chickens from wandering over there – and we’d presumed we’d fit a paling wooden one.

But as there is a narrow bed where the fence will go, I’m wondering if rather than a boring wooden fence, whether we could use fruit bushes/trees to grow a living fence/mini hedgerow.

The row gets a decent amount of light but not full south-facing sunlight. We could easily “lose” 3ft or so to bushes, but the neighbours side would have to be
kept quite neat.

Any suggestions for things we could plant to achieve such a thing?

(One thing: there are a bajillion – I counted – blackberry bushes in the field on the other side of our house, so we’d rather avoid those if possible.)

Any ideas?

Other posts you might like:

Picking fruit trees – what to choose? Fishing for fruit: catching wild plums with a fishing net Free resources for simple living & frugal bloggers Next year’s growing plans