4 hours ago
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Name: Burford Garden Company.
Age: 49.
Appearance: A large garden centre in the heart of the Cotswolds, just off the A40.
Can I get slug pellets there? Yes, you can.
What about milking sleeves? No, you’ll have to go to Cirencester for those.
Shame – I hate to make two trips. What about a decorative garden fountain? Of course. They do a lovely zinc water feature for £2,095.
That seems a bit steep. Is it shaped like a fish? Or a gnome holding a fish? I think you may be missing the point of the Burford Garden Company.
Which is what? It’s chic.
A chic garden centre? Surely that’s an oxymoron. Not in Burford it isn’t.
They sell dirt, don’t they? They do. But they also sell fancy produce, books, designer and vintage clothing, gourmet food and £3,000 trees.
£3,000 for a tree? For a 50-year-old Tuscan olive tree, yes.
And this is a working business model? The Johnson family, who run the six-hectare (15-acre) complex, reportedly turned over nearly £20m last year.
What kind of people pay £3,000 for a tree? Celebrities.
And what kind of celebrities happen to find themselves in Burford? Jay-Z and Beyoncé.
Are you kidding? Local resident Gerry Barrago says his wife sees them at the garden centre all the time. “Her first reaction is to ask who they are,” he told the Daily Mail. “Some of these so-called celebrities I’ve never actually heard of.”
Never having heard of Beyoncé is possibly not the flex he thinks it is. It’s unforgivable, since they’re practically neighbours. Jay-Z and Beyoncé are said to be closing a deal to buy a 23-hectare parcel of land outside Wigginton.
I see. This is that bit of the Cotswolds. Yup – in the vicinity of the golden triangle roughly enclosing Burford, Stow-on-the-Wold and Chipping Norton.
Home to Jeremy Clarkson and the Beckhams. And other residents including Kate Moss, Simon Cowell, Ellen DeGeneres, Stella McCartney and, from time to time, the king.
Not to mention the casual visitors. Them too. The US vice-president, JD Vance, spent his summer holiday there, much to the consternation of locals.
Did he visit the Burford Garden Company? He went to the Daylesford Organic farm shop instead, but it’s a similar vibe.
It’s almost as if these Americans are searching out some idyllic notion of the English countryside as a form of, dare I say it, escape. Or maybe they just fancy spending £70 on a trowel.
Do say: “You can pick up your compost out back, Mrs Carter.”
Don’t say: “Seriously, these milking sleeves are gonna be the next big thing.”
