Brookside Garden Centre

Founded in 1962, Brookside garden centre specialises in an exceptionally wide range of specimen perennials, bedding plants, flowering shrubs and fruit trees, set of by landscaped set pieces to help visitors decide. Other wide-ranging selections include quality garden stoneware, garden sheds, rustic garden furniture and conservatories - the whole service backed up by a knowledgeable and helpful sales staff. Indoors, Brookside's large gift shop offers a tempting selection of indoor and tender plants together with displays of pottery, giftware and garden accessories.

The jewel in Brookside's crown, however, is the true-to-scale working miniature railway. Famed for its meticulous attention to detail and the quality and variety of its rolling stock, it features six small engines which take visitors on a half mile tour through the beautifully landscapes gardens. This 7 1/4-inch gauge steam railway line travels along a circuit laid out round the lovely norbury brook. Along the way, numerous period enamel advertising signs recapture the feel of the golden age of steam.

The four platform station is an authentic recreation of a GWR station; there are two turntables, semaphore signals and a full size (non-operational) aughton road signal box (rumoured to have its own resident ghost). The interior of the station waiting room houses a railway museum. The line's flagship engine is a scale LMS 4-6-0 6100 royal scot.

Other attractions include the advisory aquatics centre, with fish and lilies souvenir shop, children's play area, the romany's restaurant serving delicious teas and snacks. There is also a lovely picnic area. Throughout the site there are footpaths; special attention has been paid wherever possible to the requirements of people with disabilities.

Brookside Garden Centre
Macclesfield Road
Poynton
Cheshire
SK12 1BY