Gordon Rigg Garden Centre celebrate 70 years

The Gordon Rigg Garden Centre convoy passes Hollingworth Lake

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Gordon Rigg Garden Centre celebrate 70 years of business this month and to mark the occasion the company cleaned up their fleet of vehicles and took the convoy on a trip down memory lane.

The vehicles travelled through Walsden, Littleborough, round Rochdale town centre (with a quick stop off at the Rochdale branch), through Ripponden, Smithy Bridge, round Halifax, then through Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge and Todmorden.

Gordon Rigg Garden Centre was started by Gordon Rigg in Walsden on 24 August 1945. Mr Rigg started the company with a £150 loan to buy two greenhouses, two cabins and a shed with garden tools.

He started growing plants on a small holding and would cycle round the district selling plants door-to-door and offered to plant them free of charge. Despite being told by the Ministry of Agriculture that he would not be able to run a successful nursery in Todmorden because of the climate and smoke pollution from the mills, Mr Rigg continued to work hard at his business.

He took a stall in Todmorden Market Hall selling home-grown produce and the first week’s takings were seven shillings and six pence, which is 37p.

Following the success of the shop at Todmorden Market, Mr Rigg had to move to a bigger stall. With his trading policy of ‘pile it high’ and ‘sell it cheap,’ it became the busiest greengrocer and florist in Todmorden.

Despite his success, by 1962 things looked like they could end for Mr Rigg. The quarter acre of land was rented from Bottoms Mill and when mill owner Arthur Cockcroft died, his cousin Peter, who inherited the mill, had plans for expansion and gave Mr Rigg notice to quit.

With the help of an old family friend Mr Rigg was able to negotiate an agreement with the mill owners to give up half of the land and greenhouses in exchange for an option to purchase the other half. This deal secured the future of the nursery from 1964.

Peter Rigg joined the business in 1968 and worked closely with his father to build up the centre. The first new aluminium greenhouse was built in 1972, with three more being built in 1974. A compost department was added in 1980, with a new warehouse built on site in 1981. In 1984 Mr Rigg took over Bricks Mill near to Walsden church for extra storage.

In 1988 Mr Rigg took over a small garden centre at Kingsway, Rochdale. At this time there was a serious problem at Todmorden due to the lack of parking at weekends so the new store was a way of directing customers away from Todmorden.

The Rochdale centre has had many extensions and is now almost as big as the Todmorden Centre.

In 1989 Mr Rigg was able to purchase the adjacent Winterbutlee Mill and in doing so, re-gained the land which he had ceded to the mill over 25 years previous.

In 1992, he purchased the Jubilee Mill complex at Strines Street, Walsden.

Mr Rigg died after a short illness in July 2004. He was 84-years-old. His wife Jessie died in November 2005 at the age of 91.

Gordon Rigg Garden Centre now employs over 180 staff both at Todmorden and Rochdale and is run by Peter Rigg and his wife Pauline.