5 Minutes with

Chiswick Flower Market

5 mins with Bridget Osborne, one of the directors

Who are you?

The Chiswick Flower Market CIC has been set up by a group of Chiswick residents who want to see their local High Rd flourish. The directors are Ollie Saunders, a commercial surveyor with JLL, whose idea it was, Karen Liebreich, director of Abundance London, Bridget Osborne, editor of The Chiswick Calendar, Kathleen Mitra, a Financial Director and Stephen Nutt, surveyor.

What’s your business all about?

We have set up a monthly flower market on the first Sunday of every month at the Old Market Place, outside the police station on Chiswick High Rd. We have stalls selling a variety of plants, including bedding plants, houseplants, bulbs and cut flowers and a few selling garden accessories. They range from established market traders who have come over from Columbia Rd market, to start-up businesses whose owners are turning their hobby into a business, having been made redundant during the pandemic.

Three words to describe yourself?

Chiswick Flower Market (does what it says on the tin!)

Ideal Customer?

Anyone who’d like to come and support us by buying anything from a small bunch of flowers to armfuls of plants, and then go and do the rest of their shopping and have lunch on the High Rd / Devonshire Rd / Turnham Green Terrace.

Biggest achievement?

Opening the market in September! We had more than seven thousand people throughout the day, helped by a double page spread in the FT, interviews on Radio London, local media promotion, articles in Country Life and the Evening Standard, recommendations by influencers on Instagram and Time Out making us the number one thing to do in London in September. Our flower market traders sold out and local businesses told us it was the best day’s trade they’d had in ages.

Biggest gripe?

Cannot think of one!

Your inspiration?

People who do stuff for their local community just for the hell of it, to make it a nicer place to live.

Philosophy in Business?

Do as you would be done by.

Sporting Hero?

England cricket coach Andy Flower

Biggest tip for success?

Persevere, and ask for help. It is amazing how much help is forthcoming if you do but ask.