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Sam is on his placement year in Littlehampton, working on a Nursery and Garden Centre operation.

The first “housing market crash” means that all plans to move are put on hold as the value had fallen out of the residential land market.

Planning consent is sought and granted on a piece of land adjacent to Hilltop, Little  Harrowden, as a site to relocate the nursery to.

A second planning application is made, this time without the co-operative land, and the scheme is passed in February.

A planning application is made to Kettering Borough Council for residential development on land currently occupied by The Rushes, Riverview, The Garden Centre and Hollow Wood Road.  The application is refused.

Adele Shelford begins to work at the Nursery as a Saturday girl.  Adele is now our Plant Manager, looking after the Garden Centre Plant area and the Nursery and is widely respected for maintaining one of the best Plant areas in the region.

Sam Bosworth goes to Writtle College in Chelmsford to study Commercial Horticulture

The Bosworths were approached by the South Midlands Co-Operative society to look at the possibility of creating a residential development.  The Co-Op owned the field to the south of the Nursery where Riverview and the Rushes are now situated.  They had owned this pasture for a number of years as they used if for grazing the horses which pulled their milk carts around the village.

During the 1980’s, agriculture on a small scale becomes more difficult, so horticulture became more relevant.  Livestock disappeared and cut flower, vegetables, fruit and bedding plants were sold “at the farm gate”.  The retail Nursery was established.

Frank Bosworth passes away.  John and Jill Bosworth take over the business with Jill leaving her job as a reporter on the Kettering Evening Telegraph