Wyevale Garden Centres was a British

garden centre A garden centre (American English spelling; U.S. nursery or garden center) is a retail business that primarily sells plants and related products for Home gardening, domestic gardening. Gardening centers usually revolve around outdoor home imp ...

chain, founded in 1967 by the Williamson Family. The chain became the UK's largest garden centre operator in the 1990s, and purchased the Country Gardens chain in September 2000. In February 2007, it purchased the Blooms of Bressingham chain. In July 2009, the chain rebranded as The Garden Centre Group. In March 2012,

Terra Firma Capital Partners Terra Firma Capital Partners Limited is a British private equity firm. Financier Guy Hands founded the firm in 2002 through the spin-off of Nomura Principal Finance Group. The firm, which traces its roots to the formation of its predecessor i ...

purchased the group, who renamed it back to Wyevale in October 2014. In May 2018, Terra Firma Capital Partners announced they would seek to offload Wyevale's estate of 145 properties. The biggest purchasers of the Wyevale estate were

Dobbies Garden Centres Dobbies Garden Centres Limited (styled as dobbies) is a British chain of garden centres based in Lasswade, Scotland. It was formerly the biggest garden centre operator in the United Kingdom, for a time, operating as many as 77 stores, some of wh ...

and

British Garden Centres British Garden Centres (legally incorporated as Woodthorpe Hall Garden Centres Ltd.), is a British chain of garden centres based in Alford, Lincolnshire, England. By 2022, it operated over sixty locations. It is the UK’s largest garden centre o ...

, who both each bought 37 centres, as well as Blue Diamond Garden Centres who bought 16 centres. 50 centres were sold to smaller chains and independents, with the remaining five unsold sites closed. The sale process was completed by September 2019.

History

The company started as a mail-order nursery operated by the Williamson family in the 1930s in

Hereford Hereford ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of the ceremonial county of Herefordshire, England. It is on the banks of the River Wye and lies east of the border with Wales, north-west of Gloucester and south-west of Worcester. With ...

and in 1967 opened the first Wyevale Garden Centre on Kings Acre Road. It became a

public limited company A public limited company (legally abbreviated to PLC or plc) is a type of public company under United Kingdom company law, some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth jurisdictions, and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is a limited liability co ...

(PLC) in 1987, and was listed on the

London Stock Exchange The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange based in London, England. the total market value of all companies trading on the LSE stood at US$3.42 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Paul's Cath ...

. In the 1990s, the chain purchased the Kennedy's Garden Centres, and Cramphorn Garden Centre chains and transformed all outlets into Wyevale. In 2000, Wyevale purchased Country Gardens in what has been considered by some to be a "hostile takeover". In 2007, Blooms of Bressingham was purchased by Wyevale, Blooms had previously acquired the Jardiniere Garden Centre chain. In February 2009, following the collapse of the Icelandic investment company Baugur Group who had a large stake in the firm, the

Bank of Scotland The Bank of Scotland plc (Scottish Gaelic: ''Banca na h-Alba'') is a commercial bank, commercial and clearing (finance), clearing bank based in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is part of the Lloyds Banking Group. The bank was established by the Par ...

became the majority owner of the firm in a debt-for-equity deal. In 2009, the name was changed to The Garden Centre Group. The company was bought by

private equity Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public; instead it is offered to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the co ...

firm Terra Firma in March 2012. On 17 July 2014, the company announced it would be rebranding to Wyevale Garden Centres. In May 2018, the company announced that its investors (Terra Firma) had decided to put it up for sale as a complete business or for its individual garden centres. On 16 August 2018, Wyevale sold eight of its largest garden centres to Blue Diamond Garden Centres, including Bicester, Oxfordshire; Endsleigh, Devon; Sanders, Burnham-on-sea; Cadbury, Bristol; Cardiff, Wales; Percy Thrower, Shrewsbury; Melbicks, Birmingham; and Weybridge, Surrey. On 30 August 2018, Wyevale announced the sale of five garden centres to individual buyers, including Nailsworth Garden Centre which was sold to Blue Diamond Garden Centres. A further four centres were sold to individual buyers on 4 September 2018

, headquartered in Scotland, agreed to purchase a portfolio of five Wyevale Garden Centres sites in England on 8 October. On 21 May 2019, Wyevale announced the sale of two garden centres to Blackbrooks Garden Centres. The sale consisted of their Lower Dicker & Hastings stores. In the same month, Dobbies purchased 37 Wyevale locations, doubling their reach and becoming the largest garden centre company in the UK. On 10 September 2019, the business announced the sale of its remaining centres to British Garden Centres, leading to the closure of the historic Wyevale Garden Centres brand. Following Wyevale’s financial difficulties,

acquired the vast majority of Wyevale locations in 2018. Any remaining locations were sold to

Blue Diamond Garden Centres Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...

, independent owners and smaller chains, with the final outlets sold and converted to

in 2019. In September 2023, the final holding company of Wyevale was dissolved, with no entity acquiring the Wyevale brand or intellectual property, remaining property of Terra Firma.

References

{{Authority control 1960 establishments in England 2023 disestablishments in England Garden centres Retail companies of the United Kingdom Retail companies established in 1960 Retail companies disestablished in 2019 Horticultural companies of the United Kingdom

History

See also

References