Ansell Garden Centre reopens five days after being destroyed by fire

Emily Maltby 28/11/2016

Less than a week after it was destroyed by raging flames, Ansell Garden Centre is open for business.

It opened doors today (November 25) to clear stock and will start and will start selling Christmas trees on Monday (November 28).

The news has been welcomed by loyal customers, who are eager to return to their favourite garden centre.

It was gutted on Sunday (November 18) when a huge fire broke out at 4.30pm. It took around 100 firefighters more than five hours to bring the flames under control, with huge plumes of smoke seen in the sky from miles around.

Immediately afterwards, the owners of the West Drayton garden centre spoke of their loss on Twitter.

They said: ?Heart broken seeing 14 years of blood, sweat and guts go up in smoke. Thank you for all the messages?

Another said: ?Thanks for all your kind word and messages across social media. Just so surreal, know it?s material but word can?t explain the loss.?

However, within days the first clues that the garden centre would be back started to appear.

Replying to a well-wisher?s message on Twitter, it said: ?Just sat at the dinner table with the family deciding how we can make it even better.?

And on Thursday (November 24) it posted an inspirational message which showed poppy garden ornament unscathed in front of the wreckage left by the huge fire, with the words “symbol of hope from the ashes”.

?Now, the garden centre has written: ?Please let as many people as possible know. We will be open from 10.30am today and are clearing stock.”Will be nice to see friendly faces.?

Festive trees will be sold up until Christmas.