A brief history.
James Rowlinson left school at the age of twelve and started work sweeping up for a timber merchant. Progressing through the ranks to become a timber salesman. Ultimately, he decided to work for himself and started a small family business in the 1920s, as a brass plate sales agent buying and selling timber. Soon afterwards land was purchased alongside the Manchester Ship Canal on Trafford Park Industrial Estate and in 1926 James Rowlinson & Sons was created.
At the time the British Empire was an area for the export of capital goods, e.g., steam trains, cars, and large consumer goods. So apart from timber for housing, with conventional freight, everything exported had to go in crates or packing cases. The site at Trafford Park, already a sawmill and timber yard, started to manufacture timber crates and packing cases for exported goods.
Through the decades the company expanded, importing timber from around the world and selling everything from timber carcassing for construction, to the finest veneers for high end motor vehicles. Whilst increasing its manufacturing portfolio to included prefab housing panels, wirebound containers, agricultural buildings, roof trusses, pallets, shuttering and much more.
The growth of the company saw a rise in the number of its sites across the UK and Europe. In the 1960s a twenty plus acres site on an ex-RAF aerodrome at Wardle in Cheshire was acquired. Today, the Wardle site is home to the head office of the Rowlinson Group and the key manufacturing site for Rowlinson Garden Products.
The Birth of Rowlinson Garden Products.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a shift from conventional freight to containers for shipping and the phasing out of softwood crates and boxes meant Rowlinson were looking for a new product to manufacture. This led to the creation of the Rowlinson 6x4 shiplap shed, the first of its kind. A robust shed with the advantage of being manufactured from kiln dried South African Pine. DIY was becoming very popular and the shed proved very successful and could retail back then for just £99.99. Further products followed, a range of picnic tables and benches and the first steps in what was to become Rowlinson Garden Products.
The Business Today
Drawing from many years of timber knowledge, manufacturing expertise and a passion for innovative new products, Rowlinson Garden Products soon became and continues to be a leading UK manufacturer and importer of an extensive range of garden structures, buildings, and storage solutions. Along with a wide range of garden furniture, grow your own and landscaping products. Today there is a comprehensive range of over 400 products to suit all styles from the traditional cottage garden to new contemporary designs. Our team are continually working to design and develop new products, in an endeavour to bring you the very best for your garden.
Quality, Safety and Sustainability.
You can be confident the full range of products are constructed to the highest standard and from the finest responsibly sourced materials available. All products are manufactured to standards set out in our Quality Management System, accredited to ISO 9001: 2015. We ensure where necessary our products are tested and approved to the most recent BS EN standards.
Timber is key to a lot of what we do, and we believe our products shouldn’t cost the earth. Therefore, it’s important we constantly recognise our responsibilities to ensure the timber used in our products is from sustainable, legal sources that comply fully with the UK timber regulations. In addition, we are Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) certified (licence number C010986) and fully comply with all their current regulations of sustainable sourcing. FSC® certified products are available on request.
No matter what materials are used, the manufacturing processes undertaken or ways we deliver our products, we will use our experience, resources, and talent, to constantly monitor and refine our efforts to achieve continuous improvement in environmental performance.
It's not just our products…
We’re dedicated to providing great customer service for our retailers and the end user. We welcome anyone with questions about our products before purchase and any follow up questions on aftercare. Our team of dedicated personnel are ready to help at any point of the buying journey.
You will find hundreds of our exciting products on the One Garden website and we hope that you enjoy browsing these. Every Rowlinson product is fulfilled by the very friendly and convenient Rowlinson “Home Delivery” service. We take great pride bringing to you a quality range of products at affordable prices. The fact that we are innovators has resulted in many of our products being covered by design rights, registered designs, and patents. We, Rowlinson, are therefore proud of our products and hope they give you much pleasure and that you enjoy using them for many years to come.
