The history of Churchtown Farm
Churchtown Farm has been a flower farm for at least the last 100 years. In the past all the farm's flowers were sold through the wholesale markets. In the 1980's an increasingly international fresh produce supply chain, that gave the consumer access to flowers from all over the world at competitive prices, led us to set up Scilly Flowers to sell our flowers and those of other Scillonian growers, as gift boxes direct to the public.
The black and white pictures were taken in the 1950's and show Churchtown Farmhouse and a glasshouse in the garden.
1986 -1990
How it all started
In 1986 Andrew and Hilary Julian and family moved to Scilly. Although not from Scilly, Andrew had spent his school holidays living with his school friend, Keith Low's family on St Martin's. Working alongside an island farmer, they quickly learnt about flower farming and took on the tenancy of Churchtown Farm, along with its glasshouse, packing shed and three terraced cottages.
Julian family 1986 and Keith Low
By 1990 it was clear the farm was never going to be viable just growing scented narcissi in the winter. Hilary and Andrew looked around for a summer flower crop that could be sold using the same route to market as the narcissi. They started growing scented pinks. It was these flowers that were admired by a passing holiday maker who asked if it was possible to post some to a friend, and so a new marketing idea was born.
1991 - 2000
Direct selling takes off
In the summer of 1991 a small advert was put in the island shop window inviting visitors to call at the farmhouse to order gift boxes of postal flowers. Realising that if the more profitable direct sales were to be a success they needed to reach a wider audience than passers by on small islands, in 1992 Andrew and Hilary took a gamble and invested in a Sunday Times advert suggesting people order scented narcissi for Christmas gifts.
The farm went from strength to strength. By 1993 the farm was sending 20,000 gift boxes of island flowers a year. The cut down poster tubes that were first used to send flowers were replaced by custom designed boxes, narrowly avoiding a marketing campaign using the phrase - 'tubular smells'.
In 1999 Churchtown Farm launched its first website. Compared with websites like this it was very basic but it revolutionised the business, enabling people to send flowers from a small island in the middle of the Atlantic to anywhere in the UK.
Now being marketed under the tag-line Scent from the Islands, the business was rapidly outgrowing the small glasshouse and wooden shed, which served as the packing shed and office. In 2000 a new building was brought in on a barge and the whole operation moved across the yard to where we still work from today.
Tubular smells!
Poster tubes were a readily available packing method that could be cut to size but they had a tendency to roll off the packing bench.
New building on a barge
A new purpose build packing shed and office gave us much needed space to expand and the infrastructure to grow sales digitally.
Our first website
A website of only a few pages and certainly an eye catching choice of colour. It was made by Devon based Webselect, who also made this website.
2001 - 2010
The next generation joins the farm
In 2002 Hilary and Andrew’s son Ben and his wife Zoe moved to St Martin’s to start working at the farm. They had both been to agricultural college and brought with them horticultural expertise. Later on that year their first child, Rosie was born, followed in 2004 by Piran.
With four people now running the farm the business went through a period of rapid growth. In 2006 gift box number 500,000 was sent and in 2007 Churchtown Farm was recognised as a leader in the home shopping market, winning an ECMOD award in March and then in November was awarded Farming Family of the Year at an awards ceremony at the Houses of Parliament - not bad going for a small flower farm on the Isles of Scilly!
With this growth came one of the challenges a lot of Scilly businesses face - how to house the people needed to make it all happen. In 2009 we completed a six bedroom shared house built on the site of the old glasshouse. As we hoped, this investment really paid off as a happy, well housed team tend to stay around for longer which is great for the farm and our tiny community on St Martin's.
Six bedroom house for our team
We built a shared house with 6 ensuite double rooms to house our team. A great improvement for the 'sheddies' - those that had been living in garden sheds inside the leaky old glasshouse.
Updated our look
As part of a brand refresh in 2005 we updated our logo. We kept the curly 'S' but introduced a postal tag and flowers.
Farming family of the year
During a period of significant growth we won several national awards, including Farming family of the year, which was presented at the Houses of Parliament.
2011 - 2020
The Cambridges, cows and covid
We really started to look at the environmental impact of our farm. In 2011 we introduced a small beef herd to carry out conservation grazing for the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust but soon realised the very positive impact they had on the farm's soil health. By 2015 we managed to have all of our summer crop of scented pinks growing in tubs of sustainable coir, from the husk of coconuts, rather than the far less environmentally friendly alternative of peat grow bags. And in 2018 we redesigned our packaging, removing the need for single-use plastic sleeves and ribbon.
In 2016 the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, as they then were, visited our farm. They nearly didn't make it due to fog but just in time the sun came out. The royal couple walked up from the quay, had a tour of Churchtown Farm and met members of the community at the island hall.
As for everyone 2020 was a challenging year in so many ways. After worrying that disruption would mean we might have to close, the opposite happened. We were kept incredibly busy sending flowers and messages for people wanting to keep in touch with friends and family they couldn't see in person.
Brand new video
In 2019 we made a new farm video. Twelve years after the last one some things had changed and some things hadn’t.
A change of name
Over time we had ended up with three names - Churchtown Farm, Scent from the Islands and our web address Scilly Flowers. It was all getting a bit confusing so from 2014 we've used Scilly Flowers.
Winning flowers
Andrew and Hilary Julian at the prize giving of the Western Morning News business awards, where we won 2015 small business of the year.
2021 - Today
Our third decade and even greater environmental focus
2021 was our 30th year of sending flowers by post. What was started by Andrew and Hilary Julian as a kitchen table marketing experiment to supplement the farm's income has led to all our flowers and those of other Scillonian growers being delivered to doorsteps all over the country. With the rise of online shopping the number of flower delivery services has rocketed but not many have the provenance, expertise and experience to match us.
In 2022, a year after we installed solar panels, the data showed that just over 50% of the farm's electricity, including that needed for our energy hungry cold store, was provided by sunshine. So you can send flowers wrapped in sustainable packaging and kept fresh by the power of the sun.
We're always looking out for techniques that'll reduce our impact on nature or, even better, regenerate the natural environment. Amongst other things in 2023 we collaborated with other Scillonian farms to commission a diddy direct seed drill. The drill cuts fine channels into established grassland and delivers seed directly into the soil, this increases biodiversity as well as reducing carbon loss. In 2024 we began working closely with The Duchy of Cornwall, looking at the carbon sequestration potential of the farm.
Great value flowers
Both the Guardian and Independent newspapers review our flowers and declare them ‘Best budget flowers’.
This site goes live
We gave this website and our look a little shake up to make sure things work smoothly on any device.
Close encounter with a whale
We were incredibly lucky to spot and film an enormous humpback hugging the coast of St Martin’s.
More flowers more of the time
Work to extend the range of flowers we send pays off with a bumper crop of spring iris.
No-Fence grazing
Our cows are fitted with No-Fence collars, allowing extensive conservation grazing.
Storm Goretti
The islands take a battering, we were very fortunate to escape any major damage.