Pimbo Lane

Quiet and narrow lane, fast descent from the north and an easy alternative to Shaley Brow from the south.

Pimbo stretches back three generations to Isaac Rigby, a wagon driver who worked for Winstanley’s, a building company in Rainford. In his spare time, Isaac was a show gardener and spent many hours in the garden at his home in Pimbo, cultivating his chrysanthemums and vegetables. He exhibited at garden and flower shows all over the North West, winning many first class certificates for his efforts.In 1937, Isaac’s son Gerry was born in that very same house in Pimbo, which is still standing today next to the front car park of the garden centre. Gerry was an engineer, in fact he was Chief Electrical Control Engineer at Pilkingtons in St Helens for 20 years, but just like his Dad, he too spent much of his spare time in the garden growing produce that he later sold from his garage, leaving out an honesty box for his customers to place their money in.

roots of the Pimbo success story had been firmly planted and Gerry and his wife Shirley began by building greenhouses on the land at the back of the house and converting the garage into a farm shop, which was manned by Shirley whilst Gerry was out at work. After school their children, Kathryn, David and Andrew, would earn a bit of pocket money by helping out in the greenhouses.In 1981 Gerry took voluntary redundancy from Pilkingtons and ploughed his money back into pimbo. That’s when the garden centre really took off. In 2002, the thriving business that Gerry and Shirly built was passed down to their sons, David and Andrew. Since then the business has continued to grow.