Inside the Secret Garden with Derry Green

The Covid pandemic changed the world of work for many people – for Derry Green it was, as he explains, “a total reset”.

The successful transport business he had built up collapsed within three days of the first lockdown in 2020, leaving him facing an uncertain future and relying on universal credit.

With time on his hands and two bored children, Derry, “looking for something to do”, set to work building a glamping pod they could all enjoy in the garden of his Skelmersdale home.

It was the start of an incredible story that saw him become a social media sensation, wow the judges on the hit TV show Dragons’ Den, find love and build a business that is on course for a £5m turnover this year, with impressive growth plans.

Little wonder the 42-year-old describes the journey he has been on as “baffling” adding: “It has changed both my business and my personal life dramatically.”

Today, the entrepreneur behind The Secret Garden Glamping is hard at work getting ready to launch a second location in Cornwall, building on the phenomenal success of his original West Lancashire site.

The Skelmersdale woodland location, which has become a local landmark, is already the most viewed, most booked, and most followed glamping site in the UK.

With more 1.3 million social media followers and a waiting list of two years, The Secret Garden Glamping has firmly placed the West Lancashire town on the map when it comes to luxury tourism.

Derry has ambitious plans for more expansion, going through the franchising route to scale-up the business as he looks to grow turnover
to £10m in 2026 by building glamping sites across the UK.

The aim is to open six, with two earmarked for this year.

Looking back at how it all began, he says: “When lockdown first happened all the bookings the transport firm had were cancelled. Within three days we’d lost the entire business. I was on universal credit and had to take a mortgage payment break.”

Needing a distraction, he took to building something in the garden where his children Sophia, now 13, and Noah, who is 10, could
camp out, sharing his handy-work on Facebook.

That first pod cost him his savings of £6,000.

However, it caught the attention of social media platforms and Derry’s story went viral.

Noticing a gap in the market for unique glamping holidays, he had the idea of taking it further and to offer a bespoke glamping experience,
seeing it at first as a “side hustle”.

Within 24 hours of listing the pod on Airbnb, The Secret Garden was fully booked for two years. That’s when things really began to snowball.

He secured planning permission and began to create more of the luxury pods in the four-acres of woodland sitting behind his house.

Today there are 14 of them, including an incredible tree house, each offering visitors a unique luxury getaway experience.

There are wood-burning saunas, ice plunge pools, pool tables and outdoor bars, while others have outdoor cinemas.

All scream glamour and each cost around £50,000 to create, with ‘Tree Tops’ the most expensive at over £100,000.

Derry is grateful for the backing he got from the county council’s Rosebud Finance to help him on his way. He received a £250,000 loan
following an introduction from Lancashire’s Access to Finance service which was used to help expand the site.

An appearance on BBC’s Dragons’ Den in January 2024 proved a pivotal moment. His story moved some of them to tears and prompted Dragon Deborah Meaden to invest £100,000 in the business for a five per cent stake.

The show also saw demand for his back garden glampsite explode. Deborah no longer has a stake in the business, though Derry is in regular contact with her fellow Dragon Sara Davies.

He says: “Dragons’ Den was massive. We were on the show in mid-January and by the end of the month we had an extra £500,000 in
bookings. It took us to another level.”

Now he’s looking to raise the bar again, through franchising. It’s a direction of growth he has taken, not only because he thinks it will be
successful, but also to preserve the work-life balance he has achieved.

He and his partner Chelsea Rogers, they met when she stayed at Secret Garden Glamping on a girls’ weekend in the early days of the business, have a nine-month-old daughter Nova.

Chelsea is also Derry’s business partner and has a crucial role as the company’s social media manager.

The business has some 1.3 million followers on various platforms.

Derry says: “When I had the transport business I was always away, we had five depots and customers to service in Europe. It was very much like Groundhog Day. I was stuck in that never ending circle and couldn’t get out of it. Covid was the ultimate reset.

“The reason I set this up was to spend more time with the kids. I can pick them up from school, watch Noah play football. I love it and I’m so happy being here.”

Derry believes the franchising model will allow him to further grow the business without sacrificing his lifestyle.
He says: “I’ve got an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. I could keep things small and make a good profit but the entrepreneur in
me means I can’t stop myself. I know what we can do and how far we can go.

“We can open locations in different parts of the country through franchising and I can be here looking after the brand and the marketing and making sure we get expansion right.

“When I first started the business, people asked me, ‘who is going to come to Skelmersdale on holiday?’

“The fact is people who come here from Scotland, London, the south west, have no preconceived ideas of Skelmersdale and they go away saying what an amazing place it is.

“If it works here, where there is no tourism industry, near a motorway and an industrial estate, it can work anywhere.”

Derry also has some firm views on the industry and its future. He charges the same rates all year round, refusing to raise his prices during school or summer holidays. That commitment was something that impressed the Dragons.

He adds: “I’ve been abroad and on different trips over the past few weeks, trying to work out in my head what it is people really love about us and why they come.”

He says that five years ago that answer would have been the “experience and accommodation” his site offers.

Now he believes “service” is the real key to a prosperous future, explaining: “It’s how we interact with people and make their experience better.”

To that end he is advertising for someone to take up the post of ‘Vibe Creator and Guest Love’. Derry says: “The job will be to make guests happy. It’s going to the shop to buy the kids an ice cream, anything like that to make someone’s experience even better.”

Looking around at his handywork, he explains: “If I could ask the 10-year-old me what I wanted to do when I was grown up it would be to build dens in the woods, and that’s what I’m doing.