A pretty standard garden centre with café attached.
3
3
Date of visit: February 2026
I am a disabled person. I have experience of challenges around: accessing toilets and moving around.
Overall Rating
Average
The garden centre itself is pretty good but it's really let down by the café. They have a good selection of gardening stuff and a reasonable array of ornaments, outdoor clothing, gifts, books, cards and (mostly) local food produce in the indoor shop. The café, however, is quite poor. It's OK from an accessibility point of view... plenty manoeuvring room and a lowered counter, and the centre's toilets are here, including a good-sized accessible cubicle. However, the food is mediocre at best and the less said about some of the staff the better. I had a very average toastie and Dad had what looked like an OK sandwich. The filling of coronation chicken was apparently delicious though. The big problem was my Mum's bacon sandwich... the bacon was so rubbery and tasteless that I'm not convinced it wasn't actually facon. Teas and coffees were fine, and the wide selection of cakes looked really good, but I'll avoid it for anything more substantial in the future. Accessibility is a big plus in the centre's favour.
Disabled Access In and Around
Excellent
Accessibility is a big plus in the centre's favour. The entrance/exit doors are fully automatic. It's all on one level, not even any ramps to negotiate. The aisles in the shop and between tables in the café are wide with plenty of room to manoeuvre. The café counter and garden centre checkouts are all lowered at a great height for wheelchair users. One particular niggle is that you have to go the long way round the shop to get to the café, which is fine in a wheelchair but less so for the ambulant with mobility issues.
Accessible facilities: Single-level venue, Step-free entrance
Parking & Transport
Good
I travelled to this place by personal vehicle
There's a large car park with about a dozen disabled spaces which are tarmacked. Other spaces are gravel though so if they're full, which they were on this visit, you might have issues if self-propelling.
Accessible facilities: Electric Vehicle Charging, Dedicated on-site parking
Accessible Toilets
Good
The accessible, in fact all, toilets are by the café. The accessible cubicle is well-sized and has the standard grab rail set-up. The door is a little heavy to manage from a wheelchair. The drop-down rail is a bit wobbly and, when I was there, had a small table in the way but it was easily pushed aside. The red cord was wrapped around a rail but still hung to the floor and was loose enough to work.
Facilities: Accessible toilet
Staff
Bad
Garden centre staff were all friendly and helpful, moving trolleys out of the way for me a couple of times. The café staff are quickly divided into two camps... a younger set who are cheerful, friendly and quick to offer assistance and an older few who need to learn how to smile. And then there was the lady taking orders at the counter who had the worst "Does he take sugar?" attitude I've ever come across. Despite me trying to order for all three of us, she ignored me completely and spoke to my father directly over my head (when she wasn't chatting with her friend, that is) and completely ignored me. For all she was aware, we might not even have been together. Funny how one person can completely sour your opinion of an entire establishment...
Comments
justjules
02 Mar 2026
Thanks for the heads up - what a shame when places don't get the simplest things right..
