Claire’s Grandfather, John (also known as Jack) Magill and his wife Margaret, nee Cross (but better known as Daisy after the flower Marguerite) lived in “Rosedale”, a house by Wallasey village railway station.  They owned the land behind the house and had greenhouses for growing geraniums and bedding plants.  There was also a large wooden shed where they kept hens.  This shed is now situated at Magill’s Nursery and is known as the “tractor shed” – but we’re told that previously it used to be the cookhouse for the barracks on the gun site.  

 

Claire’s father, John Peter Magill, and his brother James William Magill carried on the business at “Rosedale” before moving to the site now known as Magill’s Nursery in 1963.

 

Claire’s mother, Jean Mary Magill, nee Joynson also came from a gardening family.  Her grandfather, George Ernest Joynson, owned land in Wallasey used for market gardening, some of it with greenhouses and her father, Henry Joynson, owned land around Beechwood Avenue and Village Way.  It is thought he had houses in Beechwood Avenue built for his workers.  

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Magill’s Nursery Site

 

Peter and Jim Magill grew many different vegetable and salad crops including lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.  In the early hours of the morning these would be taken to Liverpool, and sometimes Manchester, where they were sold to the Wholesale Merchants.  Peter would also “stand” at the Wholesale Market on the Growers Stand and sell direct to local greengrocers, who would also sometimes pick up directly from the market garden.

 

Wallasey tomatoes were well known and prized, not just in Wallasey, but in other parts of the country.

 

Orders of up to 200 dozen lettuce would be sent to the Wholesale Market where the best of them would be sold to shops such as Marks & Spencer.  Peter also used to deliver leeks to the Heinz factory to be made into soup.

 

The soil on the land at Leasowe Road is ideal for growing vegetables and salad crops - being light and sandy it warmed up very quickly in the spring and so allowed produce to be ready much earlier than for growers further inland and therefore could command a higher price.

 

It was a reasonably lucrative business until the growth of the supermarkets who eventually stopped buying fresh produce at the Wholesale Market and were instead supplied direct by large growers.  This, together with joining the Common Market, was the beginning of the end for the smaller growers as cheap produce flooded in from abroad.

 

Claire took over the business from her father and uncle when they retired in 1996.  She made the decision to go into growing plants as the Market Garden business was in such a decline.  It was also more relevant as she had done a landscaping course at Merrist Wood College in Surrey.

 

Magill’s Nursery now focuses on growing plants and bedding, selling direct from their shop at the Leasowe Road site and also at local Farmers Markets - offering shrubs, trees, climbers, perennials, bedding plants, herbs and alpines – you name it and you will probably find it at Magills.