Top Soil | Dandy's Topsoil ®

   Welcome to Dandy's Topsoil ~ 'Britain's Leading Topsoil Supplier'

'The Online Landscape Supplies Shop'

The story so far...

In the early 1800's a Chester man named James Dandy began selling fruits and vegetables from his family's allotment.

James and his family had been growing and selling fruit and vegetables from their market garden in Vicars Cross in Chester for a number of years and decided that the demand was such that they must have their own shop or risk not being able to supply the increasing demand. James' home grown fruit and vegetables, grew to be exceedingly popular with local residents and businesses who recognised the quality of the produce from the family owned and run business.

James Dandy Quality Fruit and Vegetables was the first stall to be opened in what is now remembered as The Old Chester Market.

James employed other members of his family at the store including his daughter Bess Dandy, Arther Dandy. The store was later supplied by their brother James Ellis Dandy who by this stage owned his own farm in Vicars Cross, Chester and then later from Guilden Sutton, Chester. 

James finally left the business to his son Arther and his daughter Bess who continued in their father's footsteps employing other family members including years later their brother James Ellis after he had retired from farming and their young nephew James Dandy, expanding the businesses range of fruits and vegetables as they became available.  

James Ellis Dandy and his wife had a son they named James Arthur Dandy and a daughter named Edna Dandy. James Arthur Dandy and Edna grew up on the family farm named Tile Barn in Guilden Sutton, Chester. 

The shop grew and grew with the expansion of their own bicycle delivery service in the late 1950's to local shops and resturants including five star hotels such as The Grosvenor Hotel and The Blossoms Hotel. However, when the market was demolished in the 1960's the Dandy Family changed tack and moved back into farming the land.

  After getting married to Gladys Rosa Dandy in 1944 James Arthur was offered a council farm in Bosley near Macclesfield which he farmed for a number of years. Tragically though in 1950, his youngest son, Peter Dandy, was accidentaly killed at the age of two whilst playing in the farm yard.

James Arther his wife Gladys and their eldest son (yet another James) decided that they could no longer live on the farm with the memory of what had happened there and they returned to their families home town of Chester.

James was helped back into the swing of things by his sister Edna Mulvey and her husband Norman who had obtained a contract to distribute coal coming into Chester from Collieries in North Wales and provided him and Gladys with work for a heavy goods vehicle which was a 4 wheeler Bedford. Later James Arther purchased another goods delivery vehicle which his son James drove. The pair delivered coal from Nottingham to Bowaters.

James and Gladys and now their son James grew their new business from their home in Hoole in Chester until it out grew itself, at this point the family moved to a new yard which they leased from The Waterboard in Tower Warf on the side of the Shropshire Union Canal in Chester City Centre. James won a contract to maintain other companies heavy goods vehicles with his daughters husband Brian.

When James and Gladys came to retire in 1975 they sold all of the tools to their daughter Sheila and her husband Brian and the heavy goods vehicle to their son James.

After delivering everything from seafood to coal, James Jnr. and his wife Jennifer were offered a small quantity of topsoil which Harry Huxley one of their drivers returned with after delivering some goods to a job in Warrington, Cheshire. Harry had agreed to take the soil without knowing really what he was going to do with it.

James asked around and soon found that the soil he had for sale soon sold and in doing so it created more work for his vehicles. James sent Harry back to see if there was anymore topsoil available, needless to say there was. They didn't know it at the time but they had just opened a whole new chapter in the families future. The business had firmly planted its roots in topsoil.

Over the next two decades the family business moved from the Tower Warf Site to a farm premises on Sealand Road in North Wales where James had struck a deal to keep his now growing stock pile of topsoil with the then owner Horace Morgan.

The heavy goods vehicles which were once used to transport coal were now being used to collect and deliver topsoil. James and Jennifer began advertising their topsoil in the local press and sales began to soar.

James's secret was in the quality of the the topsoil that he sold and word soon spread just how good this new Topsoil was. Like with his great grandfather almost a hundred years earlier James faced the enevitable desicion to either grow with demand or risk loosing customers.

James and Jennifer began selling gravel as a way to backload their growing number of delivery vehicles from local north west and north wales quarries, this not only ment that haulage was maximised but it also introduced a whole new product range to their growing customer base.

 James like his grandfather employed his son Kevin Dandy in the business, Kevin later left the business to set up his own haulage company Kevin Dandy Transport.

 James and Jennifer's youngest son Adam Dandy came into the business in 1996 after leaving high school, Adam went on to complete a Business Diploma before commiting to the business full time as a delivery driver and JCB operator.

In 1998 Dandy's Topsoil moved away from the normal way of selling topsoil by the grade i.e. grade 1, grade 2 etc... and became the first topsoil supplier to brand their soils with the introduction of Lawnmix® Topsoil and Bordermix® Topsoil. This offered their customers a much clearer idea of which soil to select depending on it's purpose.

In 2002 James and Jennifer's other son Simon Dandy registered a new concept called a URL the URL he registered was www.dandys.com he didn't know it at the time but the internet would hold a big future for the expansion of the business.

After moving abroad and failing to receive registration updates the url www.dandys.com was lost and it was Adam decided to register a new URL www.dandys.org as this only ment that 3 didgits on the delivery vehicles had to be changed.

The family business grew as fast as the internet did generally, which was a rate which had never been seen before in the businesses long history. From the moment the Dandys Website allowed it's customers to order online it again opened a new door in the Company's History.

Adam sourced a single company to deliver the Company's goods to any location on the UK Mainland, something which just a couple of years earlier would have been unthinkable.

Dandy's Topsoil went from being the Northwest's Leading Supplier of Quality Topsoil to becoming Britain's Leading Topsoil Supplier.

In October 2006 Dandy's Nationwide Sales Manager John Carter sadly lost his fight against cancer. John had been instrumental in the growth of over 20 new stockists including Webbs of Wychbold, JPR Farm Direct, Jackson Building Centres and Woolworths PLC. John also helped to create a sound work force at Dandy's Headoffice in Chester.

In 2006 Adam Dandy and Alan Bailey from Baileys of Norfolk got together to discuss the sharp increase in waste poor quality soil medias which were now begining to threaten the sales of their own high quality topsoil. They spoke at length about how they must educate their customers that although much cheaper these waste soils were usually the contaminated fines gathered up out of skips in an attempt by skip companies to avoid the new landfill tax which had recently been introduced. They came up with the idea to form a new quality standard which would be recognised by the trade and public alike as the sign of quality and as such set up The British Topsoil Suppliers Association (BTSA) www.britishtopsoil.co.uk . The aim of which is to protect suppliers and buyers of quality topsoil. The members meet every year to decide how to develop the BTSA with the needs of the Industry and it's Marketplace. 

In July 2006 www.dandys.org was awarded The Best Gardening Website of the year Aw ard.

In December 2006 www.dandys.org was awarded The E-comerce Website Award.

In March 2007 Dandy's Topsoil opened their second Landscape Supplies Centre at Stapeley Water Gardens in Nantwich, Cheshire.

Adam and his wife Clare Dandy bought 100% of the Company's Shares on May 15th 2007.

The Company now had a young management team who were ready to take onboard both the threats and the opportunities which the future held in store for them.

Shortly after the take over of the business, Dandy's Topsoil was re-branded to incorporate a new modern image, changing the Company's old blue and red colours and replacing them with bright and dark green colours.

The business was also given a new registered logo as well as a new environmentally friendly delivery vehicle. 

In September 2007 Dandy's Topsoil were awarded The Environmental Business of the year Award. 

In December 2007 Dandy's Topsoil were awarded The Small Business of the year Award.

In April 2008 Dandy's Topsoil were finalists for the Welsh E-commerce of the year Award.

Off the back of rising fuel prices in June 2008 Dandy's Topsoil built and commissioned their very own Bio-diesel Production Plant at their Chester Landscape Supplies Centre in order to power their entire  fleet of delivery vehicles in the most economical and environmentally friendly way.

The family business with its new young management team prided itself on it's ability to think outside of the box, which enabled it to create and introduce new and exciting products and processes into everything it does along with it's unrestricted ability to react quickly to new market opportunities.

In August 2008 www.dandystopsoil.co.uk was launched along with 25 other product specific mini websites. The new E-commerce / Intranet website was launched with many technological benefits to the old website of which different customer payment methods and live tracking of delivery vehicles are just a couple.

Still recognised as suppliers of quality topsoil, Dandy’s Topsoil now boasts an extensive product range including gravels, aggregates, barks, mulches, turf, grass seeds, pebbles and cobbles with more new and exciting products on the way.

Although Dandy’s Topsoil has expanded somewhat since its humble beginings back in the 1800’s, the same family values still apply. As time has shown, Dandy’s has always and will always hold fast to it's values of delivering quality products to it's customers whilst maintaining an exceptional level of good, friendly old fashioned service.

Today Dandy’s Topsoil is ranked number 1 in the World by Google and other major search engines under the search terms “topsoil”, “Top Soil” and many other search terms relating to the nature of it's business.

If you'd like to share in the Dandy's success story you can become a Stockist or regional distributor and by doing so take advantage of our stockist support program, please click here for more information…