News & Events

This year marked a particularly meaningful return to RHS Chelsea Flower Show for Oxley’s Furniture.

As we celebrate 35 years as an independent family business, Chelsea once again offered an opportunity to present our latest work to an international audience and reflect on the values that continue to shape the business: craftsmanship, longevity and thoughtful design.

For over three decades, Chelsea has remained an important part of our calendar since we first exhibited there in 1994. It is a place where gardens, architecture, materials and making come together, and where we can have conversations with clients, designers and collaborators. Beyond the spectacle of breath-taking gardens, creativity, and celebrity visitors, this year also served as a reminder to us that many of the businesses behind Chelsea remain family-run, rooted in specialist knowledge passed through generations.

Introducing a New Material Expression

At the centre of our stand this year was the introduction of natural stone table tops to the Oxley’s collection, adding a new material expression to our furniture while retaining the enduring performance expected of outdoor living.

We presented a Taj Mahal marble dining table on our Petrosphere base, paired with upholstered Petrosphere dining chairs in Sanderson’s Monterey Bay outdoor fabric. Alongside this, we introduced a bespoke outdoor bar and credenza topped in vesuvio quartzite, designed as practical yet refined pieces for outdoor entertaining and an example of the possibilities within our bespoke offering.

Stone brings a different language to outdoor furniture. It offers permanence, tactility and natural variation, qualities that sit comfortably alongside hand-finished aluminium and the enduring character of pieces designed to remain outdoors for decades. We are excited to explore the possibilities it brings as a custom option to complement our furniture.

A Natural Partnership with Ca’ Pietra

Chelsea also marked the beginning of a new collaboration with natural stone specialists, Ca’ Pietra.

Their carefully selected surfaces helped shape the setting of the stand, grounding the furniture within a material palette that felt architectural yet warm. Buscot limestone pavers formed the foundation of the space, while richly detailed Arabic Tapestry porcelain created a created a richly detailed focal point for the stand.

The partnership felt like a natural alignment: two independent businesses with a shared appreciation for craftsmanship, materiality and the importance of designing for longevity.

Upholstery, Pattern and an International Audience

Chelsea also provided an opportunity to showcase the breadth of our upholstery offering through Sanderson’s outdoor collection.

Our upholstered dining chairs introduced softness and texture to the stand, balancing the permanence of stone and metal with rich pattern and comfort. A particular highlight came when Sanderson’s Head of Design, Becky Craig, visited the stand to see how the fabrics had been interpreted within an outdoor setting. Having worked with the brand since the early 2000s and now leading on their new designs, her enthusiasm for the presentation and curiosity about the international response to the collection at Milan Design Week earlier this spring made for an especially rewarding conversation.

A Celebration of British Craftsmanship

One of the pleasures of Chelsea is its role as a gathering point for British makers and long-established family businesses.

This year, we were delighted to see long-time friends and collaborators at Capital Garden Products receive their first five-star award, a significant and richly deserved achievement. Having exhibited together internationally, including at Maison et Objet in Paris last year, it was particularly rewarding to see their creative flair recognised at Chelsea this year.

Nearby, Scotts of Thrapston, a fourth-generation family business renowned for handcrafted garden structures, incorporated one of our bar tables and stools into their display, demonstrating the collaborative spirit that often exists between complementary British makers.

We also met fellow family businesses navigating familiar transitions between generations, including Robert James Ltd, specialist metalworkers producing extraordinary Alice in Wonderland-inspired brass castings. These conversations served as a reminder that heritage businesses are never static. They evolve, adapt and renew themselves while preserving the skills and values that make them distinctive.

For Oxley’s, now entering our own next chapter as I begin handing over the day-to-day running of the business to my son, Nick, there was something reassuring in that shared sense of continuity and community.

Reconnecting with past customers

This might sound like marketing speak but one of the genuine highlights of a Chelsea week for us is meeting old customers of ours and hearing about their love for what we’ve made them. That we get to meet lovely people from all over the world who have bought furniture from our company sometimes more than 30 years ago, and to hear that is reassuring and affirming in a world often dominated by the awful expression “planned obsolescence”. That is exactly what we started this business to do so many years ago, although it has often been pointed out to us that this is the worst possible business model – customers only need to buy from us once and then they’re set for life! To illustrate this, we met Mr & Mrs B on the stand who shared with us the photo below of their furniture (an early Oxley’s design we no longer make) as a wedding present in 1993.

Building Responsibly

Chelsea is, quite rightly, often accompanied by conversations about the temporary nature of exhibition building and the waste that can follow. From the outset, we wanted our stand to be assembled with reuse in mind.

The paving was laid on sand using a temporary grout, allowing each piece to be carefully lifted and returned for future use rather than be broken apart and discarded after the crowds left. Likewise, many of the planting materials have found a second life, including roses now destined for a local wedding.

For a business built around furniture designed to last for generations, it felt important that the temporary nature of Chelsea did not come at the expense of unnecessary waste.

Looking Back

Chelsea remains a remarkable place: international in audience yet deeply connected to British craftsmanship and horticultural tradition.

For us, it offered an opportunity not only to present new designs, but to reconnect with old friends, form new partnerships and reflect on the enduring value of making things well.

After more than thirty appearances at Chelsea since my debut in 1994, it still feels like an important place to be, and one that continues to inspire us as we look ahead to the next chapter.