CART
Coventry Gardens proudly serves the Vancouver area. We are family owned and operated with 1 location serving the Vancouver area. We are committed to offering only the finest floral arrangements and gifts, backed by service that is friendly and prompt. Because all of our customers are important, our professional staff is dedicated to making your experience a pleasant one. That is why we always go the extra mile to make your floral gift perfect.
The Story of Coventry Garden
The old city of London, the East End, has been virtually extinguished. Like most great cities, the original heart had, in time been abandoned. Great cities tend to show a movement westward that is both geographical and social, for reasons never actually explained - following the setting sun perhaps?
As London crawled west it gradually left its tradition behind, stranding its original centuries of commerce and fashion. Thus, places with famous names and significant pasts dating back to the eighteenth century found themselves with a somewhat blurred role in the present.
Recently, however, an unexpected trickling of life has bloomed amidst the old city. Established originally in 1802 by Monks as a garden location, and rebuilt twice later due to fire, Covent Garden rested dormant through many changes of purpose. For the longest period, Covent Garden was London's principle fruit and vegetable market. With today's resurgence, the old market buildings have been sensitively renovated. Covent Garden, with its shops and restaurants, publishers, theatres, and above all, the old flower market building, is the most attractive and bustling place in London.
Elegantly and distinctively, Covent Garden is the link between Old London and the West End. Its flowers symbolize that the traditional heart of London resounds with life upon bold movements westward with the energy and beauty. No visitor to London should fall to walk along the market and choose a flower for a loved one.
The spirit of Covent Gardens finally reached America in the Northwest. Coventry Gardens was established in Vancouver, Washington in 1988 by Sandra Bakker, a Londoner for her first 20 years. Deservedly, the setting sun seems to be shining on the flowers of Covent Garden Market a bit longer these days!
"Coventry - The Land of Lady Godiva"
Lady Godiva, English countess renowned in folklore for riding naked through the marketplace at Coventry, Gidiva, more properly Godgifu (meaning "gift of God"), first appears in English sources about 1028, when, ill and near death, she donated an estate to the abbey of Ely. She apparently recovered and married Leofric, the Earl of Leicester.
The earliest account of Godiva's ride comes from the chronicler Roger of Wendover (died 1236), who relates that the countess appealed to her husband to remit the heavy taxes imposed on Coventry. Wearied by her pleas, Leofric promised to comply if she would ride nude through the town. Having let down her hair so that only her beautiful legs showed, Godiva mounted a horse and made the journey. Later accounts mention that Godiva had ordered everyone to remain indoors with windows shut, and one version asserts that she was seen by Peeping Tom. There is no factual basis for Godiva's ride and no contemporary evidence that she ever visited Coventry, but historically she was remembered as a patroness of monasteries and churches. - John Ferguson
Let Coventry Gardens be your first choice for flowers.
