About us

Burford was really born of frustration.

Back in the '80s, a young couple by the name of Nigel and Louise had just returned from traveling around Europe.  One night, while washing their dishes after dinner, they lamented there was no place at home to buy the more individual home and garden wares they had admired throughout their travels. That is without traipsing round endless, unfamiliar and anonymous town centers, often returning home dejected and empty-handed.

Passionate to make what they love available to others, they decided to build on the success of the small family run plant and garden centre, started by Nigel's family in the middle of the Cotswold Hills in the 1970's.  They traveled throughout England and Europe buying stunning trees and shrubs directly from the growers, from factories making beautiful French copper pots and simple white bistro dinnerware, and from artisan cheese makers in the depths of Somerset. All brought back home and displayed in the slightly Bohemian surroundings of an English greenhouse.

It was just what this quirky part of middle England needed; a lovely shop, with a feast of ideas regularly changing and a reliable source of inspiration.

This underlying ethos of the ‘garden, home and kitchen as one' still guides the company today. We are a little bigger than in those early days but that early greenhouse still survives today at the core of our newer developments - and from where we continue to grow and develop our ideas.