A much-loved Merseyside garden centre has been welcoming generations of customers for "a family day out" for 75 years.
Located on Chester High Road in Neston, Gordale Garden and Home Centre is an award-winning family run business now in its third generation. Established in 1948, today the business is "more than just a garden centre" and has continued to expand since its humble beginnings decades ago.
Now owned by husband and wife Peter and Jill Nicholson, Gordale is one of the oldest garden centres in Britain and employs around 100 members of staff, selling everything through the seasons from plants and garden furniture to Christmas trees and decorations and more. Jill, who used to work as a geography teacher in Chester married Peter in 1986, later joining his family business.
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Jill told the ECHO: "My husband's parents, they were called Harold and Joyce and before them there were Joyce's parents, who were Lilian and Albert. Lilian and Albert were running a dairy in Hoylake and they were delivering milk in horse drawn carts in those days.
"They decided it was too much for them and they spotted up for sale at auction at the Grosvenor Hotel in Chester a small holding called Gordale nursery. Albert decided that would be something he would like to do. He had this lovely vision that he and his wife and his daughter and her husband could perhaps run this small holding together."
Harold and Joyce were working in Laycock in Wiltshire when they decided to join the business venture. The small holding had pigs, chickens, a coffee shop and grew flowers and vegetables, but times were hard with post war challenges and rationing still in place.
The family at one point put the business back up for auction and when it didn't sell for what they paid for it, they decided to keep it. Jill said: "By the 1950s, after that people started to have more money, the effects of the war began to pass and people didn't really have a lot to do.
"There wasn't all the activities that there are now, the out of town shopping centres, the multiscreen cinemas. Hundreds and hundreds of people used to come to Gordale for their day out."
As years went on, more customers were keen for more products, which saw the business evolve. Jill said in 1955, the family had their "lucky break" when Dutch salesman Fred Dejong supplied the family with more "exotic" plants like azalea's, which turned out to be very popular.
Jill said: "People say garden centres aren't like what they used to be, they don't just sell plants any longer. But you can’t survive just selling plants.
"We've got staff who have worked for us for more than 40 years, quite a lot have worked for more than 30 years. We do have a very very loyal staff base.
"We have customers who've been coming for years. I suppose 75 years ago if some customers were ten and they’re 85 now they might remember us, but we do get a lot of people who say my nanny and grandad used to bring me here for an ice cream and we bring our children."
Gordale is also one of the oldest garden centres in Britain. Jill said: "We have got a document written by the National Farmers Union in 1962 that says one of the first garden centres in the UK, before the term had really been created." Also members of the garden
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Members of Garden Centre Association, a recent annual inspection saw the business ranked 5th in the country this year. Over time, the family have bought neighbouring plots, now boasting 20 acres, as well as expanding to a 500 capacity car park, a children's play area, an 180-seat coffee shop and more.
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The site also has a woodland walk, a pond with ducks and geese and sells their own homemade cakes. Jill said: "We have fought to be here,. We’ve done a lot of improvements over the years.
"We’re more than a shop. We’re very proud. It’s really nice to carry on the family tradition. "
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