Family-owned outdoor furniture and garden centre retailer Gordon Rigg Garden, Home & Leisure Todmorden has suffered a devasting fire.

The fire broke out at 5:15am on 19 July 2022 at its premises on Rochdale Road in Todmorden and was attended by six crews from both West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service and Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service.

The fire service said six firefighting appliances were used to deal with the incident with crews managing to extinguish the fire around 6:50am the same morning.

It is understood that an overheating fridge in a store room was the cause of the blaze, which spread to its storage and signs office.

The retailer said: “At around 5:15am this morning a fire started in our store room by what we believe to be a fridge that overheated. Thankfully this happened before any staff where in the garden centre and it only spread to our storage and signs office before it was contained by the fire department who arrived very quickly.

“Thank you to both West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service & Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) who worked brilliantly to put out the fire before it spread to the main garden centre, we are very grateful for their hard work this morning. Also, a big thank you to our local residents who called the fire department and we’re here to offer a helping hand.

“We have been in business 77 years and this fire certainly won’t be the end of us. The question now is what shall we build in its place, to continue to grow our beloved garden centre.

“We can’t thank everyone enough for their continued support after this devastating event.”

Despite the fire, the business was able to open as usual but with restrictions in place.