Blue Diamond Expected To Buy Barton Grange Garden Centre

Blue Diamond is expected to buy Barton Grange Garden Centre, the GCA’s Destination Garden Centre of the Year for 2025.

Blue Diamond is buying the freehold of Barton Grange Garden Centre. It is also buying Garden Centre Plants, the group’s wholesale nursery that supplies hardy nursery stock to garden centres across the UK. 

Blue Diamond will not be acquiring The Flower Bowl leisure and entertainment centre.

The deal is set to complete on 21st July.

The acquisition departs from the normal style of purchase by Blue Diamond which focusses on well-located garden centres that are not achieving their potential. As a multiple award winning garden centre with an EBITDA of around £3m, Barton Grange is much admired for the standards it sets. It has been the Garden Centre Association’s destination garden centre of the year on multiple occasions and is the current holder of the accolade.

The most recent accounts show that in the year ended 31 January 2024, Barton Grange Garden Centre increased turnover to £15.5m. After a hard winter Garden Centre Plants’ nursery turnover was still a satisfactory £3.3m.

The executive directors of Barton Grange are brothers, Peter and Guy Topping (www.bartongrange.co.uk and Garden Centre Plants Preston - UK wholesale outdoor plant nursery).

Barton Grange has released the following statements:

Peter and Guy Topping, the current generation at the helm of The Barton Grange Group, are preparing to retire from the horticultural industry.

In planning for the future, they are in exclusive discussions with Blue Diamond—the UK’s largest garden centre group—regarding the potential sale of Barton Grange Garden Centre. The aim is to ensure Barton Grange continues to be recognised as one of the world’s leading garden centres for many years to come.

While discussions are ongoing, and they include the Company’s wholesale plant nursery (Garden Centre Plants Ltd.), it remains very much business as usual. Neither party will be making any further comment at this stage.

Please note that these discussions do not involve The Flower Bowl or Barton Grange Marina, both of which remain central to the family’s long-term plans.

Source : Reproduced with permission from George Bullivant at Garden Forum

Image : Barton Grange Garden Centre 

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