It will be marking its 155th anniversary this year and is now a firm fixture of Bridport life - we're taking a look back at Groves Nurseries' fascinating history.

What is now one of Dorset's largest garden centres started in the late spring of 1866 when Charles William Groves started a small garden nursery in Piddletrenthide and that small business has grown into an award-winning company.

After all those years, Groves very much remains an independent family business. He started the company with his son, also a Charles William, giving it the name CW Groves and Son, with many Charles Groves' following them.

The father and son management continues today with Clive Groves and his son Charlie Groves, the managing director, working at the Bridport site, along with Charlie's sister Becky working at Little Groves in Beaminster and his wife, Diana, also at the Bridport nursery.

They are the sixth generation of Groves running the company, which has evolved with technology - offering online shopping - a bigger site, a restaurant and vast range of gardening products and plants, but at the heart, it remains a plant nursery growing the majority of its own stock.

Before Charles Willian Groves set up the company, his family had been thatchers in the Toller Porcorum area for years, a trade he tried for a short while, as well as working as a miller and even travelled around Dorset selling bibles before discovering he had green fingers and concentrating his energies on growing plants, mainly for their seeds.

The original nursery was at Ivy House - hence the name of the restaurant at Groves - in Piddletrenthide, overlooking the Piddle Valley. Seeds were distributed by post by hawkers (those who travel around selling their wares) and pony and cart.

As it grew, the family purchased shops in Dorchester. The first opened in East Street and as it grew even more, another shop in South Street and two more in Fordington and Trinity Street.

The flourishing business was handed down from father to son and after three generations of Groves being born in Piddletrenthide, it was moved to Bridport - where the first Charles William came from - in 1936 as the family needed more land. The nursery and shop were in West Road.

An amusing story has been passed down through the family from 1938 of how the then Mrs Groves was in the shop selling flowers when King Edward VIII, on a visit through Dorset, was attracted by the colourful floral display and stopped to purchase a large bunch, the best in the shop, for his Mrs Simpson, who was to be his wife. Mrs Groves was absolutely thrilled to have served His Royal Highness.

Like Mrs Groves, many of the Groves women have played a vital part in the company's success. During the First and Second World Wars the Mrs Groves' of the time had to keep the business afloat whilst their husbands and sons served their country.

A long-standing employee, Fred Morey, worked at Groves from 1932, during the depression, right up until the 1980s recalled how Charles William, son of the founder, worked in the office in the early 1930s while his wife, daughter and Fred worked for hours on end in the seed packing department.

More recently, Diana Groves, Charlie's mother, supported her husband, Clive, for many years whilst he was at the helm and Becky Groves put her stamp on the business by opening Little Groves.

Whilst the business has been passed down through the generations, so have the initials, with each generation naming their sons C.W. Groves.

The most recent Charles William, great grandson of the founder and father of Clive, was another Groves to put his mark on the company when he purchased the current Bridport site on West Bay Road in 1962. It was the old Bridport football field but he could see it was the ideal place for expansion.

He was also responsible for two great horticultural achievements - firstly working with the Government on trials to perfect the technique of growing onions from sets rather than just seed and this led to Groves being the company that introduced onion sets to the UK. Secondly, he is to be thanked for saving the famous Zambra collection of violets amongst others and going on to build a collection of more than 130 varieties.

In 2003, Groves Nurseries' collection of Victorian Dorset Violets gained the status of being a recognised national collection of Viola odorata and Parma Violets. We will tell you more about violets at Groves soon!

In 1986, the nursery was well established at West Bay Road when a compulsory purchase order was put on some of the land and earmarked to build Bridport's new bypass. This was a very traumatic period for the business but it did allow the site to develop from a traditional nursery to the garden centre it is today.

The current managing director, Charlie Groves, has also put his own stamp on the business with the impressive Ivy House restaurant, which replaced the café his father commissioned in the 1990s.

There is no doubt Groves is a long-standing, beloved Bridport company.

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