Then and now: Sharpe’s Garden Shop relocated to Grantham in 1850

Sharpe’s Garden Shop was established in the town in 1824 by John Sharpe, a nurseryman from Sleaford, writes Ruth Crook of Grantham Civic Society.

He established a 250 sq ft premises, which moved to the Market Place site in 1850, where his son Charles joined the business. The current building dates from 1901 and was extended in the late 1960s, doubling the floor space.

The new extension had modern racks and display area, allowing customers to browse a wider range of products more easily.

Sharpe’s were specially noted for their house plants from specialist suppliers of nursery stock, rather than from markets. The shop had had records showing that many local families had shopped with them for several generations since the shop’s inception.

Customers travelled from the whole of the UK to shop there, because they stocked 7 different lawn grass mixtures, 21 varieties of seed potatoes and over 20 varieties of summer bulbs. The shop regularly produced its own catalogue. It closed in the early 1990s.