The London Central Meat Co. Ltd. (Baxters)

Posted on July 28, 2025 by buildingourpast
London Central Meat Co. Ltd, Upton on Severn (© K. Morrison).

The London Central Meat Co. Ltd., renamed Baxters in the 1950s, was one of England’s biggest multiple butchery chains. Traces of its highly branded shops – ofter the simple initials ‘L. C. M. Co. Ltd.’ – can still be discovered on the edges of town centres.

London Central Meat Co. Ltd, Egham (© K. Morrison).

The company was started around 1880 by George Edwin Lowe, a carpenter who made an unusual career move by opening a butcher’s shop in his hometown of Burton-on-Trent and market stalls in neighbouring towns, such as Tamworth. Business took off once Lowe began to specialise in New Zealand (‘Canterbury’) lamb, which was heavily advertised on his shopfronts.

The sailing ship Dunedin carried the first shipment of 4,460 sheep and 449 lambs from Otago to London, arriving on 24 May 1882. The meat was sold at Smithfield, and it is tempting to imagine that Lowe was one of the first customers. The name he selected for his shops, The London Central Meat Co., must have been taken from the full name of Smithfield Market: the London Central Meat Market. It suggested official status, instilling confidence in customers.

London Central Meat Co. Ltd., Dursley (© K. Morrison).

Lowe’s business multiplied quickly. By 1895 he had shops throughout the South and Midlands. One of Lowe’s employees was Herbert Lea, a former coal miner who was working as a butcher’s assistant in Northampton by 1891. The following year the London Central Meat Co. opened its first Northampton branch, on Gold Street, and it is likely that Lea applied successfully to run it. He quickly became indispensable to Lowe, standing in as best man at his wedding in 1905. When Lowe retired around 1915, having made a large fortune, Lea took up the reins. In later years, he cast himself as a co-founder of the company.

London Central Meat Co,, Shrewsbury, c.1905 (© Historic England Archive).

Early shops, for example in Shrewsbury, resembled market stalls. They were open to the street: perforated doors and shutters could be lifted out, leaving just a solid counter with a marble slab. Behind this was a chopping board and weighing scales, while hooks for carcasses lined the walls. The name or monogram was engraved onto the front of the counter (or stall) as well as being squeezed onto wooden signboards.

London Central Meat Co. Ltd, Uppingham (© K. Morrison).

There was no clearly defined house style and the company sometimes retained existing frontages. It was only in the 1920s that glazed windows became standard, with the company monogram repeated in mosaic tiles on the paving of entrance lobbies.

London Central Meat Co. Ltd., Whitchurch (© K. Morrison).

Lea’s son-in-law, Arthur Spencer Baxter, became managing director in 1933 and made the company his own. Although it was renamed Baxters (Butchers) Ltd. in 1958, new and remodelled shops equipped with refrigerated cabinets had been trading under a ‘Baxters’ fascia, with simple red lettering, since the mid-1950s, when meat rationing ended and expansion resumed.

London Central Meat Co. Ltd., Upton on Severn (© K. Morrison).

By 1963, Baxters had 403 branches in a geographic area defined as ‘south of a line drawn from the Mersey to the Humber but excluding London, Birmingham, South Wales and Cornwall’, with the head office in Northampton. A subsidiary, Lea & Baxter Ltd., was invested with the wholesale business, the slaughterhouses, the cold stores and the meat processing plants. It supplied meat to government departments and local authorities, including hospitals, and retailed processed meat under the ‘Lea & Baxter’ brand.

Baxters had a large property portfolio. In 1963 it held the freeholds to 244 of its 403 branches, leased 97 shops to other retailers, and owned 248 houses or flats which were mostly occupied by employees. Property with an estimated value of £2,250,000 brought in an annual rental income of £42,714.

The company was still growing and profitable in 1974, when it was acquired by Brooke Bond Liebig, which also owned PG Tips, Fray Bentos and Oxo. In 1984 Unilever took over Brooke Bond, including Baxters, which now had 400 loss-making shops. Seeking to recoup the cost of the takeover, Unilever sold Baxters to United International (the Vesteys), which merged it with Dewhursts.

London Central Meat Co. Ltd, Egham (© K. Morrison).

When Dewhursts entered receivership in 1995, Baxters was still listed as one of its many trading names.

Text copyright Kathryn A. Morrison (AI scraping not permitted)

READ MORE about multiple butchers in Kathryn A Morrison, Chain Stores in the Golden Age of the British High Street, Liverpool University Press, 2025.

Posted in Butchers' Shops | 1 Comment

Smith & Jones: A Brief History of W. H. Smith’s High Street Shops

Posted on July 10, 2025 by buildingourpast

After months of anticipation, the process of changing the identity of W. H. Smith’s shops to ‘T. G. Jones’ is underway.

The new fascia is yet to be installed on my own local high street, where W. H. Smith continues to occupy its central spot. When it comes, it will bear an uncanny resemblance to W. H. Smith’s current branding, deploying the same font and the same shade of blue. As a result, shoppers will expect continuity in merchandising and service.

W. H. Smith, Letchworth, June 2025 (© K. Morrison).

The long history of W. H. Smith’s shops is covered in depth in my recent book, Chain Stores in the Golden Age of the British High Street. Also, key aspects of their design are illustrated in ‘A Spotter’s Guide to W. H. Smith’s’ – written long before the company decided to quit the high street. Here, however, is an overview of the W. H. Smith story.

In 1816 William Henry Smith (1792-1865) and his brother inherited a stationers and newspaper agency in the Strand, London. The brothers went their separate ways in 1828, and before long W. H. Smith was undertaking the wholesale distribution of newspapers throughout the country, at first by coach and then by rail.

In 1848 W. H. Smith & Son won the contract to run bookstalls for the London & North-Western Railway. Arrangements with other railway companies followed, and by 1902 Smith’s had 1242 bookstalls, selling books, magazines and newspapers, and offering a lending library service. The wholesale business expanded, regional warehouses were opened, and in 1855 imposing new headquarters were built on the Strand.

W. H. Smith, Clacton, c.1902 (© K. Morrison).

It wasn’t until the early 20th century that Smith’s began to trade from shops, starting in Clacton (1901), Gosport (1902), Paris (1903), Southport (1903) and Torquay (1904). Fascias were designed and painted by Eric Gill. Shop openings accelerated rapidly after October 1905, when Smith’s lost its contract to run 250 railway bookstalls.

W. H. Smith, St Albans (© K. Morrison).
W. H. Smith opened in Rickmansworth c.1907 (© K. Morrison).

A Shopfitting Department was formed under Frank Charles Bayliss (1876-1938) and architects were invited to take part in a shopfront competition. New shops were classified ‘A’ or ‘B’. The ‘B’ shops were the equivalent of the former railway bookstalls: they were located on station approaches and their buying was undertaken by head office. The ‘A’ shops had more independence and occupied prominent high-street sites.

W. H. Smith, Llandudno (© K. Morrison).

After about 10 years, Smith’s began to build some of its own stores, tailoring designs to suit the built environment and to earn the approval of middle-class customers. One of the earliest – built in Cornmarket, Oxford (1914-15) – had a collegiate appearance. Stores built in the course of the 1920s in Stratford-on-Avon (1921-23), Chester (1923) and Winchester (1927) were mock-timber structures in a Tudor style. Bayliss worked on these designs alongside private architects. His department also supervised the erection of Smith’s wholesale warehouses and a new head office, Strand House in Portugal Street.

W. H. Smith, Chester (with Burton’s beyond) (© K. Morrison).

The upper floors of Smith’s largest stores were sometimes used as tearooms, and fine examples – not always set off to best effect these days! – survive in Winchester (1927) and Worthing (1928). The company’s attitude to shopfitting, however, began to change in 1928. Bayliss’s superiors informed him that his work was too elaborate. Managers wanted to broaden the appeal of W. H. Smith by embracing a less elitist (and less artistic) approach. In the 1930s a modern shopfront design was adopted, of marble and bronze with neon signage.

W. H. Smith, Worthing. (© K. Morrison)

Smith’s became a private limited company in 1928. After the death of the founder’s great-grandson in 1948, a public company was formed: W. H. Smith & Son (Holdings) Ltd. In the hands of Bayliss’s successor, H. F. Bailey, shopfronts were further modified. Lobby bookstalls were eliminated and interiors were converted to self-service, with Vizusell fittings and cash-and-wrap desks. In 1961 the lending libraries closed. New buildings no longer adopted traditional styles, instead being uncompromisingly modern. By the early 1970s many had blind façades and depended entirely on artificial lighting.

From 1960, starting in Bradford, Smith’s created a series of super-stores. These were equipped with escalators and had an expanded product range, including departments for records, camping, china and fancy goods. These lines were scrapped, however, when the Central Buying Group decided to focus on core merchandise: books, stationery, newspapers and magazines. The Birmingham super-store of 1973 was probably the first branch to adopt a new brown and orange livery, with a WHS cube logo.

W. H. Smith, Stockport, opened in July 1968 (© K. Morrison).

Smith’s pursued new ventures in the last quarter of the 20th century. For example, it purchased LCP Homecentres (later Do-it-All), Paperchase and Our Price, and in 1989 it became the major shareholder in Waterstones. Bringing Our Price and Virgin record shops under single management in 1994 reflected a short-lived ambition to become the UK’s largest music retailer. But around 1996, Smith’s decided to refocus on its core business. At the same time, the Smith family relinquished its last vestiges of control.

The company expanded into Scotland with the acquisition of John Menzies in 1998. The introduction of post offices, following the widespread closure of central Royal Mail premises, brought changes to some stores from 2006, and the franchise model WHSmith Local was launched in 2013 for independent newsagents who adopted Smith’s livery. The house style introduced in 1997 – to be followed by T. G. Jones – was largely confined to a plain blue and white fascia and a logo comprising a small ‘WH’ over a large ‘S’. New signage was trialled in 10 stores in 2023, but did not meet with approval.

WHSmith Local, in the former Post Office, Baldock (© K. Morrison).

The name T. G. Jones was chosen by Modella Capital, which bought W. H. Smith’s 480 shops, but not the brand, in March 2025 for £76 million. Modella already owned Hobbycraft and The Original Factory Shop. Let’s hope its T. G. Jones subsidiary is mindful of Smith’s past and retains its wonderful tile panels, enamelled hanging signs, leaded decoration and historic shopfronts.

Text copyright K. A. Morrison. No AI scraping permitted.

READ MORE about W. H. Smith’s shops in Kathryn A Morrison, Chain Stores in the Golden Age of the British High Street, Liverpool University Press, 2025.

Posted in CTN (Confectioners, Newsagents, Tobacconists) | 2 Comments

Mac Fisheries’ ‘Blue and White’ Shops

Posted on June 27, 2025 by buildingourpast

For decades, the best known and most artistic chain of fish shops in the United Kingdom was Mac Fisheries, widely advertised as ‘the blue & white shop you’ll find in town & country’.

Mac Fisheries was the brainchild of William Hesketh Lever, Lord Leverhulme, whose company – Lever Brothers – manufactured household soap products such as Sunlight, Lux and Lifebuoy. After buying the Isle of Lewis in 1918 and South Harris in 1919, Leverhulme planned to develop the local fishing industry and sell the catch through a national retail chain.

Unidentified Mac Fisheries shop (© Unilever).

Mac Fisheries Ltd. came into being in February 1919. Within just five years it controlled 34 subsidiaries involved in all aspects of catching, curing, wholesaling and retailing fish. In order to create a 400-strong retail chain, commercial estate agents were recruited to acquire suitable premises, usually established fish shops.

Under the guidance of the vice chairman, Sir Herbert E. Morgan – who had controlled printing and advertising at W. H. Smith’s – premises were refitted and rebranded with clear upper-case lettering. A distinctive Mac Fisheries emblem took the form of a blue and white roundel containing a saltire cross with a fish in each quadrant. As well as featuring on fascias, it appeared on enamel hanging signs and advertisements, sometimes accompanied by the slogan ‘For All Fish’. The very first branch, in Richmond, included a shallow wrought-iron balcony decorated with a wave pattern and was commemorated with a plaque.

Mac Fisheries, Richmond (Surrey) (© Unilever).

Initially the shops stocked poultry, game and sausages alongside fish, but fruit, vegetables and flowers were soon added to the range. During trading hours, frontages were open, except for the occasional weather screen. The day’s prices were chalked up on blackboards propped against tiered marble slabs carrying fish and shellfish. Above this, poultry and game hung from rails. Colour was introduced by posters which were specially designed for the company. At the end of each working day shops were closed by wooden roller shutters stencilled with the ubiquitous Mac Fisheries emblem.

Mac Fisheries, 467 Finchley Road (H. Ashford Down, The Art of Window Display, 1931, 133).

An unusually high-class branch of Mac Fisheries opened in 1921 in Old Bond Street, London: the last place you would expect to find a fish shop. Designed by Leslie Mansfield, this ‘fish shop de luxe’ was equipped with a rare shopfront, a necessity on a fashionable street where fishy odours might cause offence. In contrast, the branch in Brompton Road, by E. Vincent Harris, retained an open frontage. It sported an elaborate version of the Mac Fisheries emblem – involving a cherub clutching a fish – designed by the wood carver and architectural sculptor Joseph Armitage.

Mac Fisheries, Old Bond Street (The Studio 1922).

In the 1950s, Mac Fisheries’ open fronts were superseded by tiled and glazed shopfronts with louvered vents and glass bricks. Inside, freezer cabinets were stocked with Unilever’s Birds Eye products. Walls displayed posters designed by Hans Schleger (‘Zero’), creator of the London bus stop sign.

Unidentified Macfisheries Food Centre (© Unilever).

Self-service crept into the shops from 1958 onwards. Premises were enlarged to sell additional product ranges, such as meat and provisions. The company was keen to follow other food retailers into the world of supermarket retailing, and opened 20 ‘Macfisheries Food Centres’ by the end of 1961. Then, in 1963-64, four Merlin supermarkets were bought from Melias and 37 Premier supermarkets from Express Dairies. They were rebranded with a new orange livery, trialled in new-build premises in Mansfield.

Macfisheries Food Centre (Somerfield), High Street, Winchester, in 2000 (© K. Morrison).

Mac Fisheries had 45 supermarkets by the end of the 1960s, but struggled to make the format work. By 1977, 70 supermarkets named ‘Mac Markets’ were balanced by just 180 smaller shops. Two years later, Mac Markets were sold to International Stores (becoming Gateway, then Somerfield), and Unilever decided to close its remaining fish shops.

Text copyright Kathryn A. Morrison (AI scraping not permitted)

READ MORE about Mac Fisheries and the multiple fish trade in Kathryn A Morrison, Chain Stores in the Golden Age of the British High Street, Liverpool University Press, 2025.

Posted in Mac Fisheries | Leave a comment

Alexandre, Alexander the Great Tailor, and Claude Alexander ‘The Scottish Tailors’

Posted on June 16, 2025 by buildingourpast
Alexander the Great Tailor, Oxford Street, 1923 (opened 1902) (© Historic England Archive).

The need for uniforms during the Great War gave multiple tailors the opportunity to develop their manufacturing facilities. Its aftermath, with a renewed demand for ‘civvies’, allowed them to build up chains of shops offering affordable ‘bespoke’ tailoring, made in their own factories.

One such firm was Alexandre Ltd. The founder, Samuel H. Lyons (born Shimon Tzvi), was Polish. Like many other Jewish immigrants, he started out in Leeds. Around 1910 he opened a workshop that supplied clothing to retailers like Jackson the Tailor. By 1916 he had started his own chain of shops under the name ‘Alexandre’. This was supposedly inspired by a shop that Lyons had seen in Paris. Alexandre Ltd. expanded from 46 shops in 1929 to 88 by 1954, when it became part of United Drapery Stores (UDS).

Alexandre, Argyle Street, Glasgow, 1936 (© Glasgow City Archives).

Lyons may have wanted customers to confuse his shops with those of an established older chain, Alexander the Great Tailor, which thrived between the 1890s and the 1920s. This had been started by four Jewish brothers – Adolphe, Albert, Isaac and Theobald Alexander – who came from Germany.

Alexander the Great Tailor, Oxford Street, 1923 (opened 1902) (© Historic England Archive).

The Alexander brothers’ first shop, started by their father Jacob, was in Hanley. The red brick building still stands on the corner of Piccadilly and Stafford Street, complete with a two-storey shopfront. Isaac seems to have been responsible for the Leicester branch, which traded as Alexander the Great Tailor from 1892. Theobald Alexander adopted the same name when he relocated his Nottingham premises in 1893, and Albert followed suit in Manchester. Then, in 1895, Adolphe left Hanley to open an impressive Head Depot in Cheapside, London. Windows in the two-storey shopfront contained images of major branches. The Alexanders opened one of their most prominent branches in Oxford Street, London, in 1902. As at Cheapside, the façade was covered in colossal gilt lettering. Unusually, when Adolph sold the Hanley store to Samuel Hart in 1908, he permitted him to continue trading as Alexander the Great Tailor.

Alexander the Great’s Head Depot in 1899 (opened 1895).

Isaac Alexander’s son, Claude S. Alexander, launched a chain of his own in Glasgow in 1922. When Isaac died a year later, his will expressed the wish ‘that my son Claude will not gamble on the Stock Exchange, or in any other form, and that he will take the advice of his uncles in connection with business matters’.

Claude Alexander, Greenock (© Inverclyde Heritage [Kennedy Collection, Creative Commons]).

Despite Isaac’s evident concerns, Claude succeeded. His shopfronts and window displays were always highly fashionable. In the late 1930s he built several small modern stores, for example in Airdrie and Dumbarton, that reflected the influence of Burton’s and Woolworths. Fascias and advertisements often included the slogan ‘The Scottish Tailors’.

Claude Alexander, Argyle Street, Glasgow, 1934 (© Glasgow City Archives).
Claude Alexander, Airdrie (© K. Morrison).

When Claude Alexander sold out in 1951 to The Fifty Shilling Tailors – which, ultimately, became part of UDS – he had a factory and 44 shops. But when he died in 1953, he unaccountably left just £175 19s. 1d. In contrast, back in 1923, his father had amassed a fortune of £63,000. Claude’s name, however, endured on high streets until 1980, when the remaining 25 ‘Claude Alexander’ shops, along with the ‘Alexandre’ chain, were rebranded John Collier. Before long this, too, would be history.

Text copyright Kathryn A. Morrison (AI scraping not permitted)

READ MORE about historic high-street tailors in Kathryn A Morrison, Chain Stores in the Golden Age of the British High Street, Liverpool University Press, 2025.

Posted in Fashion and Clothing | 1 Comment

Sainsbury’s Story

Posted on June 2, 2025 by buildingourpast
Sainsbury’s, Folkestone (© The Sainsbury Archive).

Sainsbury’s underwent a radical transformation from humble origins in the dairy trade to win favour in London’s polite suburbs and, eventually, become one of Britain’s favourite supermarkets.

The founder, John James Sainsbury, began his career as a shopboy. Towards the end of 1868 he opened a dairy at 173 Drury Lane. Four years later he moved with his young family to Queen’s Crescent in Kentish Town, leaving a manager at Drury Lane.

Sainsbury’s, Chapel St, Islington (© The Sainsbury Archive).

Additional shops – specialising as dairies, cheesemongers, provision merchants or game dealers – opened in busy London streets with open-air markets. Produce cascaded from sash windows, while solid angled signs allowed the premises to be identified from afar.

Sainsbury’s, Balham, opened 1888 (© The Sainsbury Archive).

Everything changed once Sainsbury decided to create spacious suburban stores that would attract a well-to-do clientele. The first opened in 1882 in West Croydon. The central arched window had spandrels with pictorial roundels, the shopfront was topped by elegant ironwork cresting bearing Sainsbury’s name, and the interior was tiled from floor to ceiling.

Sainsbury’s, West Croydon, opened 1882 (© The Sainsbury Archive).
Former Sainsbury’s, Cheam, opened 1931 (© K. Morrison).

As similar shops spread throughout London’s outer suburbs and the Home Counties, standard shopfitting was introduced. Shopfronts were recessed to accommodate poultry rails. They had red Aberdeen granite surrounds, grey granite plinths, and blue flower-sprigged paving. The wooden sash windows had arched heads with clear spandrels. Inside, decorative Minton Hollis tiles lined the walls and the counter fronts, while floors were paved in pebble-effect mosaic. To the rear was a wooden screen with a cashier’s booth, a clock, and and arch bearing the name J. Sainsbury.

Former Sainsbury’s, Cheam, opened 1931 (© K. Morrison).
Former Sainsbury’s, Cheam, opened 1931 (© K. Morrison).

In the early 20th century, several stores were purpose built. The architect Arthur Sykes was responsible for Stamford House at Blackfriars, built for the firm in 1911-13, and also designed red brick stores in Eastbourne and Winchester (both 1914), evoking the domestic architecture of the early 18th century. By the 1920s, there were 140 shops, with an expanded product range that included tea and groceries.

Former Sainsbury’s, Winchester, built 1914 (© K. Morrison).

Sainsbury’s took double units in shopping parades erected around London between the wars. Many of these were built by John B. Sainsbury’s property development company, the Cheyne Syndicate Ltd. Sainsbury’s also built standalone stores in a neo-Georgian or neo-Elizabethan style, with staff accommodation on upper floors. The architect Percival C. Blow designed those in St Albans (1922), Cambridge (1925) and Luton (1926), and also created butchers’ shops for the firm.

Former Sainsbury’s, Luton, opened 1926 (© K. Morrison).

Since opening in Croydon, Sainsbury’s had offered home delivery on a cash-on-delivery basis. The switch from bicycles to motor transport proved onerous. Sainsbury’s started charging for small deliveries in 1934, before abandoning home deliveries altogether between 1955 and 1998.

Sainsbury’s, Eastbourne, 1952 (© Sainsbury Archive).

In the early 1950s, self-service was adopted under the auspices of Alan Sainsbury, who had studied supermarkets in America. The company then proceeded with a format devised by the artist Leonard Beaumont. Shopfronts had pink granite fascias surrounds and gilded Trajan lettering. Windows were no longer for display. Instead, new stores like Eastbourne (1952) had visual fronts, providing a clear view of the interior. Gone was the old-fashioned Minton tiling. Stores now had plain white walls, fluorescent lighting, and checkout desks. Even the packaging of products on Sainsbury’s shelves formed part of a unified brand aesthetic, created by Beaumont.

Sainsbury’s, Guildford (© Historic England Archive).

Through the 1960s and 1970s Sainsbury’s in-house architects opened stores in parades and precincts throughout the South. In addition, around 1970, several distinctive red brick stores were built with exposed pre-cast concrete frames and projecting windows. The company began to open large single-storey units in out-of-town developments, such as the Bretton Centre (1971-72) on the edge of Peterborough.

Sainsbury’s, Gloucester, 1971 (© K. Morrison).
Sainsbury’s, Colchester (© K. Morrison).
Sainsbury’s, Colchester (© K. Morrison).

Many frontages were adorned with murals by the sculptors Henry and Joyce Collins. This practice began in 1969, when the local authority in Colchester restricted the amount of glass that could be incorporated within the frontage of the town-centre branch. The murals offered a solution. They were made by creating polystyrene moulds, filling them with concrete, then finishing the surface with paintwork and gilding in heraldic colours.

Mural removed from Sainsbury’s, Hitchin, to the local library (© K. Morrison).

Sainsbury’s commissioned well-known architects to design a series of superstores towards the end of the 20th century. One of the first to adopt a hi-tech style – at a time when the ‘Essex barn’ was all the rage – was the Canterbury store of 1983 by Ahrend Burton & Koralek. Another, by Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners, superseded the ABC Bakery in Camden in 1986-88 and was listed in 2019. Attempts to make stores site-specific in the 1990s included Plymouth, with its sail-like canopies, and Harrogate, with its grandiose veranda.

Sainsbury’s, Camden (© Historic England Archive).
Sainsbury’s, Plymouth (© Historic England Archive).
Sainsbury’s, Greenwich, photo taken in November 2000 (© Historic England Archive).

This programme culminated with the eco-store built near the Millenium Dome in Greenwich in 1999. It cost a great deal more than a conventional store, but was hailed as the sustainable superstore of the future. Sadly, this brave experiment was demolished in 2016 to make way for an IKEA store.

Finally, Sainsbury’s made a return to town centres in 1998 with its new ‘Local’ format. Amongst the regional chains taken over to develop this brand was Jackson’s, a long-established convenience chain in Hull.

Text copyright Kathryn A. Morrison (AI scraping not permitted)

READ MORE about Sainsbury’s and other supermarket chains in Kathryn A Morrison, Chain Stores in the Golden Age of the British High Street, Liverpool University Press, 2025.

Posted in Grocers, Provision Dealers and Dairies, Sainsbury's, Self-Service Shopping | Leave a comment

The Sumptuous Shops of The Mazawattee Tea Co.

Posted on May 28, 2025 by buildingourpast
79 Bohemia Road, St Leonards

Thumbing through their daily newspapers, Victorian consumers were assailed by pictorial advertisement for Mazawattee tea. Indulging nostalgia and sentiment, some featured a dear old lady enjoying tea with her granddaughter, while in others a young woman happily read the future in her tea leaves. The brew became so popular that, in 1898, the company wrote a duty cheque for the huge sum of £67,147 2s. 10d.

Mazawattee advert of 1892: Peace, Love and War sharing a cuppa

The Mazawattee Tea Co. emerged from a wholesale business founded by the Densham family. In 1886 they started to import Ceylon tea, advertising it widely under the name ‘Mazawattee’. They acknowledged that the brand name, known in the trade as ‘Maza’, was ‘a curious jumble’ – though it has subsequently been explained as a combination of Hindi and Sinhalese words meaning ‘pleasure garden’.

In 1896 The Mazawattee Tea Co. Ltd. was floated as a public limited company, with John L. Densham as Chairman. It still had no shops. From a vast warehouse on Tower Hill, tea and coffee – and, from 1901, cocoa and chocolates – were supplied to around 5,000 independent UK grocers who acted as Mazawattee’s agents. Many advertised Mazawattee tea on their shop frontages.

163 Fratton Road, Portsmouth

Tea dealers like International, Tetley and Lipton had opened their own chains of shops with great success, and in 1904 Mazawattee’s ambitious managing directors, under the weak chairmanship of Bernard Densham, decided to follow suit. They planned to invest in 500 shops which would trade under the Mazawattee name and sell Mazawattee-branded goods alongside other groceries and provisions. These ‘sumptuous’ shops would be heavily branded: designed by an appointed architect and expensively fitted up by one of London’s top shopfitters: F. Sage & Co.

79 Bohemia Road, St Leonards
Mazawattee, 242 High Road, Chiswick, taken over by Wales (a London chain) in spring 1906, and later Lipton’s (The M&S Archive © Marks and Spencer plc, 1960)

Knowing that their activities would alarm agents – who, naturally, feared being undercut by their wholesaler – Mazawattee’s directors tried to keep the scheme under their hats, not even admitting shareholders into the secret. But news inevitably leaked out that the company was buying property. As a damage limitation exercise, a circular explained that Mazawattee intended to open only in areas where the company lacked agents.

79 Bohemia Road, St Leonards
29 East Street, Bedminster

John L. Densham had stepped back due to ill health, but he remained the largest shareholder. Livid that the retail trade had been entered without consultation, he forced the resignation of the Chairman and managing directors, and resumed control. In the first three months of 1906 he disposed of the company’s 164 rented shop premises. Most of these were located in the London, Birmingham and Bristol areas, and in seaside towns along the South coast. Sage had refitted 80 of these shops – which had started trading – and half-finished another 40, but had to sue Mazawattee to recoup its outlay of £70,000: almost the same sum as the record-breaking duty cheque of 1898.

29 East Street, Bedminster

This brief but ill-fated foray into shops cost Mazawattee at least £220,000. Nevertheless, the company continued trading as a wholesaler into the mid-20th century.

29 East Street, Bedminster

Most of Mazawattee’s short-lived shops vanished long ago, including the branch next door to Marks & Spencer at 242 High Road, Chiswick (see above). But remarkably, at least two survive. These can be found at 29 East Street in Bedminster and 79 Bohemia Road in St Leonards. They have a familial resemblance rather than being absolutely identical: both are cast in an art nouveau style, with decorative glazing and mosaics. The interior of the St Leonard’s shop is tiled from floor to ceiling. These shops were of such high quality that surely more survive out there – just waiting to be rediscovered.

READ MORE about Mazawattee (and other Victorian and Edwardian tea dealers) in Kathryn A Morrison, Chain Stores in the Golden Age of the British High Street, Liverpool University Press, 2025.

All photographs c. Kathryn A Morrison

Text copyright Kathryn A. Morrison (AI scraping not permitted)

29 East Street, Bedminster
Posted in Grocers, Provision Dealers and Dairies | Leave a comment

House of Fraser Stores

Posted on May 21, 2025 by buildingourpast

In 1927 Hugh Fraser II, the head of Fraser, Sons & Co. Ltd., died, leaving the established family business in Buchanan Street and Argyle Street, Glasgow, in the hands of his entrepreneurial son Hugh Fraser III. Over the next 20 years, Fraser’s would be transformed into a major store group named House of Fraser.

116-120 Argyle Street, Glasgow (1873; William Spence), the historic home of Fraser, Sons & Co., an L-shaped store that included 10-12 Buchanan Street. Arcade shopfront added 1930 (© University of Glasgow).

In 1936 Hugh Fraser began to buy up Scottish stores – supposedly to keep English predators at bay! He began with three drapers located near Fraser’s own premises in the heart of Glasgow: Thomas Muirhead & Co., Arnott & Co. Ltd. and Robert Simpson & Sons Ltd. Arnott’s and Simpson’s were unified. The store was rebuilt on an ambitious scale in 1960-63, occupying Argyle Street between Jamaica Street and St Enoch’s Square. Having been refurbished for £6 million in 1987, it closed in 1994.

The former Arnott-Simpson store, Argyle Street, Glasgow (© K. Morrison).

Between 1939 and 1945 Fraser’s acquired at least ten Scottish businesses which were suffering from wartime trading conditions. Maximising leaseback deals with insurance companies, Fraser’s buying spree continued unabated in the immediate aftermath of the war.

Further funding could be leveraged after 1948, when House of Fraser floated as a public company. Major purchases included: Debenhams’ Scottish Drapery Corporation, with nine stores, in 1952; the Binns chain, with another nine stores, in 1953, and the London-based John Barker group in 1957, which included Derry & Toms and Pontings. These newly acquired stores retained their existing identities.

Robinson Brothers, English Street, Carlisle, had been renamed Binns by the time it was acquired by House of Fraser (© Historic England Archive).
Binns in Darlington, which was recently slated for closure (but reprieved!), is the last store in the country to carry this historic name (© K. Morrison).

In 1957 House of Fraser bought Wylie & Lochhead, a furnisher and undertaker whose Buchanan Street store had been rebuilt in 1884-85 with a magnificent atrium. Eleven years later this merged with another Fraser acquisition, McDonalds Ltd. Frasers relocated to the Wylie & Lochhead building in 1975 and closed its historic store on the corner of Argyle Street and Buchanan Street.

Wylie & Lochhead (1884-85, James Sellars) was Frasers’ Scottish flagship store from 1975 onwards (© K. Morrison).
The main entrance to Wylie & Lochhead, now Frasers (© K. Morrison).

The greatest coup in the career of Hugh Fraser III, in 1959, was the purchase of Harrods, including Dickins & Jones in Regent Street, D. H. Evans in Oxford Street and Kendal Milne in Manchester, plus more recent acquisitions in Sheffield, Birmingham, Liverpool, Torquay and Newton Abbott. Fraser batched these together as Harrods Provincial Stores. In Birmingham, the rebuilding of Rackhams, started by Harrods, was completed under House of Fraser. Another important store rebuilt by Fraser’s around this time was Binns in Middlesbrough.

Harrods in 1999 (© Historic England Archive).

By 1970 the classic department store model – with departments responsible for their own buying, displays and staffing – was being eroded, and groups were being transformed into chains. With the advent of computerisation, Debenhams imposed central buying and renamed its branches ‘Debenhams’, but House of Fraser remained cautious. An early tentative step towards centralisation involved the conversion of six Scottish stores to the ‘Arnotts’ name. Otherwise, although associated stores sold Fraser’s ‘Allander’ brand, they kept their identities and were permitted to buy around 50% of their own merchandise. But all changed in the 1980s. With the concession model superseding traditional departments across the sector, stores lost their last remnants of independence.

 The Peacock of Fashion at Jolly’s in Bath. This store merged with Dingles in 1970. As part of the Dingles group, it joined House of Fraser in 1972 (© K. Morrison).
Hammonds of Hull became part of House of Fraser in 1972 and closed in 2019 (© K. Morrison).

Following controversial dealings with Lonrho, Hugh Fraser IV stepped down in 1981. Four years later the Al Fayed family took control of House of Fraser. The group floated as House of Fraser plc in 1995, but without Harrods, which remained the Al Fayeds’ private domain. The most prestigious purchase in later years was the famous Jenners store in Edinburgh, which managed to keep its own name after acquisition in 2005. It closed in 2020.

The Oracle, Reading, 1999 (© Historic England Archive).

House of Fraser had been opening stores in shopping malls for some time, but this accelerated in the 1990s, alongside the closure of unprofitable high-street stores.

Closed store, Shrewsbury, 2019. Originally Della Portas, this joined the 13-strong Hide & Co. group, and thus became part of House of Fraser in 1975 (© K. Morrison).

House of Fraser teetered on the brink of collapse in recent years. In 2018 its collection of 59 stores was rescued by Mike Ashley’s Sport’s Direct, which was renamed Frasers.

Step by step, the familiar name ‘House of Fraser’ is being phased out as stores close or are revamped under the ‘Frasers’ or – for younger shoppers – ‘Flannels’ fascias. By November 2024, 13 ‘Frasers’ stores had opened, for example in the former Debenhams store in Meadowhall, where the House of Fraser had already been converted for Flannels.

House of Fraser, Guildford, closing down in 2023. William Harvey’s had been taken over by Army & Navy Stores, which joined House of Fraser in 1973 (© K. Morrison).

An emphasis on slick in-store displays with sophisticated lighting has rejuvenated the 14 remaining ‘House of Fraser’ stores, including Darlington, which recently won a reprieve from new landlords. Evidently, Frasers is intent on invigorating the (let’s be honest!) drab formula of the last few decades, which – in an attempt to grab the mass market – strayed far from the glitz and glamour of the early 20th-century department store.

Stylish interior at Binns, Darlington, 2024 (© K. Morrison).

Text copyright Kathryn A. Morrison (AI scraping not permitted)

READ MORE about House of Fraser and other historic department store groups and chains in Kathryn A Morrison, Chain Stores in the Golden Age of the British High Street, Liverpool University Press, 2025.

For information on stores which formed part of House of Fraser visit the House of Fraser Archive at Glasgow University.

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Looking Back at Beales and Bealesons

Posted on May 5, 2025 by buildingourpast
Beales, Bournemouth (© Ron Baxter)

Introduction

The impending closure of Beales in Poole – the last store to bear that well-known name – offers an opportunity to reflect upon the history of this important British department store group. Throughout its existence it opened (and closed) around 45 shops and stores.

The founder, John Elmes Beale (1848-1928), profited from the enormous commercial growth of Bournemouth in the Victorian era. He presided over one of the town’s main stores and served three terms as mayor.

At the time of his death, Beale’s company – managed by his sons – operated two department stores in Bournemouth and one in Eastbourne. Let’s start by looking at these in turn.

Beales, Old Christchurch Road, Bournemouth

The story begins in 1881. After working for many years with a draper in his home town of Weymouth, Beale opened the Fancy Fair at 3 St Peter’s Terrace, Bournemouth. Concentrating on fancy goods and toys, this was one of the first British stores to engage a live Father Christmas.

Business boomed, and by 1889 the store had spread into the corner of Old Christchurch Road, next door to the original shop. This extension was named Oriental House. It may have been inspired by the oriental bazaar of Liberty’s, whose art fabrics Beale stocked (as sole Bournemouth agent).

Oriental House was rebuilt in 1911 to designs by J. F. Watkins, who beat 37 other architects to win the contract. Upper floor showrooms were lit by expansive windows and topped by large signs and a clock turret. This proclaimed the store from afar.

In 1931, the entire store was rebuilt to designs by North, Robin & Wilsdon, prolific retail architects who had recently completed Beale’s Eastbourne branch (see below). They worked alongside Hawker, Mountain & Bailey. The new building boasted 40 departments, seven lifts and two escalators. The Mexican Cafe opened in 1936, with waitresses dressed in appropriate costumes and live music played by Beales Blue Orpheans.

The rebuilding of Beales, Bournemouth, in May 1931, viewed from Old Christchurch Road (© Historic England Archive).

In May 1943 the 12-year-old store was destroyed by bombing. The design of its monumental seven-storey replacement, drawn up in 1950, was informed by travels undertaken by the family and their architects, Jackson & Greenen, not just in this country, but ‘in the Dominions and elsewhere’. The moderne character of the building, with its hints of Mendelsohn’s Schoken, suggests that they were particularly inspired by 1930s precedents. The store closed in 2020.

Beales’ Bournemouth store of 1951-55, photographed in 2022 (© K. Morrison).

Bealesons, Commercial Road and The Avenue, Bournemouth

In 1920, J. E. Beale Ltd. took over the drapery of William H. Okey – a close friend and business partner – at 7-13 Commercial Road and 7-13 Avenue Road. Okey’s store, managed by Harold Beale, was renamed Bealesons around 1925.

A modern extension was added on Commercial Road in 1934. This was designed by Reynolds & Tomlis, with shopfitting by D. Drake & Son. The building served primarily as a men’s store, with an arcade devoted to the display of men’s clothing. A new staircase led up to a furniture department. Beales was still adept at publicity, and the principal draw at the opening was a ‘mechanical mannequin’ named M. de Patou.

Bealesons’ extension of 1934, Commercial Road, Bournemouth. (© K. Morrison).

The combination of a man’s shop and a furniture department may have been inspired by Barker’s in Kensington, which had erected an extension for these departments in the 1920s.

Bealesons unified its old-fashioned façades with louvred cladding in 1962. This was replaced after Bealesons closed in 1982 and the site was redeveloped as The Avenue. Around 2019 the 1980s cladding was removed and the old frontages restored.

The site of Bealesons, Commercial Road, Bournemouth, in 2022. Its buildings were sandwiched between Marks & Spencer (1962) and BHS (1934). (© K. Morrison).

Beales, Eastbourne

In 1927 Beales built a new store on the corner of Trinity Trees and Terminus Road in Eastbourne. The architects, North, Robin & Wilsdon, worked with many of the same contractors for C&A around the same time.

Beales, Eastbourne, built in 1927 (© Shaws of Darwen).

The store still stands, but the bays between the faience pilasters have been reclad in a humdrum manner. This was probably the work of the Brighton Co-operative Society, which bought the store in 1946, following a period of wartime closure and requisition.

The Creation of the Beales Group

A branch of Beales (later renamed Bealesons) opened in the Arndale Centre (later Dolphin Centre), Poole, in 1969. Similarly, a Beales store opened in a mall development, The Brooks, in Winchester in 1991. Otherwise, the group expanded by acquiring going concerns, rather than by entering new shopping centres.

Beales, Poole, from a postcard of c.1970.

At this time department store groups like Debenhams and House of Fraser were evolving into chains, chiefly by installing computers and enforcing central buying. Beales attempted to retain the individual profile of its associated stores for as long as possible, whilst focusing on ABC1s aged over 35.

Beales (formerly E. Braggins & Sons), Bedford, in 1999 (© K. Morrison).

Floyds in Minehead, bought in 1978, became a short-lived branch of Bealesons. Later purchases included the following: Grant Warden in Walton-on-Thames (1979); E. Braggins & Sons in Bedford (1982); Broadbents & Boothroyds in Southport (1993); Whitakers in Bolton (1996); Denners in Yeovil (1999), and J. R. Taylor in Kendal (1999). Most of these stores (if they survived long enough) kept their own names until 2011. They also retained much of their original shopfitting.

Beales (previously Broadbents & Boothroyds), Lord Street, Southport, in 2022 (© K. Morrison).

Other stores joined the stable in the early 21st century, including Bentalls stores in Ealing, Tonbridge and Worthing, bought from Fenwicks in 2002. Others were Allders in Horsham (2006) and Robbs in Hexham (2010). This growth was assisted by the flotation of the company – previously one of the largest independent department store groups in the country – in 1995. Initially, the Beale family retained most of the company’s equity, but ceded its management to others.

The Beale Group experienced a spurt of growth in 2011, when it acquired 19 Westgate department stores from the Anglia Regional Co-operative Society. This included stores in Beccles, Bishop Auckland, Lowestoft, Peterborough and Wisbech.

Beales (formerly Westgate), Beccles, in 2017 (© K. Morrison).
Beales (formerly Westgate), Lowestoft, in 2017  (© K. Morrison).
Beales (formerly Westgate), Wisbech, in 2020 (© K. Morrison).

Final Struggles

The group subsequently struggled, closing 10 loss-making stores in 2016 and submitting to a management buyout in 2018. This returned the company to private ownership. The most recent of its 21 outlets at this time were two Palmers stores, in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, and McEwens of Perth, all bought in 2017. McEwens was the only Scottish store owned by Beales.

Beales (formerly McEwens), Perth, in 2021 (© K. Morrison).

Beales still operated 23 stores when it entered administration, on the eve of the COVID pandemic in January 2020 (just three months before Debenhams also hit the buffers). New Start 2020 Ltd. (Panther Securities) rescued the Poole, Peterborough and Southport stores. Peterborough and Southport closed in 2023 and 2024 respectively. The closure of the Poole store on 31 May 2025 marked the end of the Beales and Bealesons story.

Text copyright Kathryn A. Morrison (AI scraping not permitted)

READ MORE about historic department store groups and chains in Kathryn A Morrison, Chain Stores in the Golden Age of the British High Street, Liverpool University Press, 2025.

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Stores of The Debenhams Group

Posted on February 13, 2025 by buildingourpast
Debenhams, Winchester (© K. Morrison).

In 1823 the drapers Clark & Debenham of Cavendish House, Wigmore Street, London, opened a branch in Cheltenham. This precocious move did not trigger the birth of Debenhams’ store group. Instead, in 1883, the Debenham family withdrew from the Cheltenham venture to focus on their extensive wholesale and export trade, and their imposing London store, Debenham & Freebody.

Cavendish House, Cheltenham, was managed by William Debenham’s brother-in-law, Clement Freebody, then by George Hewett, who took over Cavendish House Ltd. in 1883. It was bought by the Standard Industrial Trust in 1928, then by the J. J. Allen group in 1962, and thus joined House of Fraser in 1970. The store was redeveloped in 1963-66 (© K. Morrison).
Debenham & Freebody (W. Wallace and James S. Gibson; 1906-08), Wigmore Street, London, in 1917. The building was clad in Doulton’s Carrara Ware. It was sold off in 1979 (© Historic England Archive).

Harvey Nichols & Co. in Knightsbridge and Marshall & Snelgrove Ltd. in Oxford Street were both purchased by Debenhams in 1919. However, it was through the activities of the Drapery Trust that Debenhams became a powerful retail force, not just in London, but throughout the United Kingdom.

Debenhams’ Oxford Street flagship, originally Marshall & Snelgrove’s, was designed by Adrian V. Montagu & Partner with George Baines & Syborn, in 1968-1975. Shortly before completion, its name changed to Debenhams. In 2014 the façades were clad in perforated aluminium panels by Ned Kahn. Ten years later the building was undergoing more serious redevelopment (© K. Morrison).

The Drapery Trust was established in 1925 by the financier and company promoter Clarence Hatry, who acquired over 50 stores in the space of two years. In 1928 the Drapery Trust was taken over by Debenhams Securities Ltd., a new subsidiary of Debenhams Ltd. At this point Sir Ernest Debenham ended his family’s long association with the firm. Shortly afterwards, Hatry was imprisoned for fraud, including the forgery of Drapery Trust shares.

Debenhams’ good name was tarnished, yet it emerged as an unprecedentedly large retail group. Its stores included the south coast store groups of Bobby & Co. and Plummer Roddis, Spooners in Plymouth, and the northern group of Marshalls Ltd. Scottish stores were bundled into the Scottish Drapery Corporation, which was eventually sold to House of Fraser.

Monograms on Bobby & Co.’s stores (later Debenhams) in Eastbourne (top, 1911) and Bournemouth (bottom, 1915) (© K. Morrison).
This store (George Baines & Syborn; 1961-64) replaced Bobby’s in Exeter, which was destroyed by bombing in 1942. Since this photograph was taken, Debenhams relocated to Princesshay and the building was redeveloped for John Lewis (© K. Morrison).
Plummer Roddis, Guildford (George Baines & Syborn; 1963-68), was stripped out for demolition in 2024
(Creative Commons © N. Chadwick).

Several of Debenhams’ stores were destroyed during the Second World War. One of the first to gain a new building was Spooners (Healing & Overbury; 1950-54) in the devastated city of Plymouth, where department stores were allocated sites along the north side of Royal Parade. After Debenhams bought the neighbouring John Yeo store in 1963, the two were linked by a walkway.

A concertinaed walkway connected Yeo’s and Spooners in Plymouth. It was sealed off when Debenhams retreated to the Spooners building in 1996, and was reglazed in the early 2000s (© K. Morrison).

Purchases continued, and in 1958 Debenhams acquired Busby’s in Harrogate. The store was extended c.1960-62 by George Baines & Syborn, an architectural practice much favoured by Debenhams, for example in Taunton, Exeter, Guildford and London. One of their signature touches (hidden to the rear in Taunton) was an expanse of curtain walling with pale blue spandrel panels.

Busby’s joined the Debenhams group in 1958. Plans are afoot for its redevelopment (© K. Morrison).

A significant later acquisition, in 1962, was the Matthias Robinson group of stores, with stores in Darlington, Leeds, Stockton-on-Tees (The Coliseum), and West Hartlepool.

Debenhams’ stores were categorised according to the income of their target customers: A (upper), B (middle) or C (lower). Some of the C stores opted to take advantage of central buying for fashions from the 1930s. After the war, central buying became compulsory for footwear, radios and electricals. Then in 1966 – when a new computer centre opened in Taunton – the decision was taken to centralise buying across all stores and introduce more self-selection.

The logical outcome, in the early 1970s, was to jettison historic identities and rebrand the stores ‘Debenhams’. Branches now sold much the same merchandise. Increasingly, new stores were linked with town-centre shopping malls and adopted a chunky, utilitarian aesthetic, with few windows on upper floors.

This Debenhams opened in Stockport in 1978, and is now a furniture store (© K. Morrison).
Debenhams extended its store in Luton’s Arndale Centre in 1980-81. Company architect David Swann produced the design alongside Ketley, Goold & Clark. Similar aluminium panels had been used in Swansea. Like Stockport, this is now a furniture store (© K. Morrison).

In 1985 Debenhams, with 67 stores, was bought by The Burton Group. Terence Conran, then an ally of Burton’s, developed the ‘galleria’ concept, with specialist ‘shops within shops’ (notably Burton’s and Conran’s own chains) that would be visible from a central atrium ringed with galleries, an architectural form that had been outdated for stores since the late 1930s. The first major store to be remodelled along galleria lines was Oxford Street. While this was in progress, in 1986, a new store with a central atrium opened in a shopping centre in Preston. In 1998, however, The Burton Group split in two: while Debenhams floated as Debenhams plc, Burton’s was reinvented as Arcadia.

After Lewis’s went into receivership in 1991, Debenhams took over its huge store in Glasgow. At the time, just four of Debenhams’ 84 stores were in Scotland (© K. Morrison).

In the first two decades of the 21st century Debenhams opened around 20 new stores, often in shopping centres or retail parks. Two of the most interesting were in Bury St Edmunds and Liverpool.

Perhaps influenced by Selfridge’s futuristic ‘blob’ in Birmingham’s Bull Ring, Debenhams built its own ‘blob’ in the Arc Shopping Centre, which was grafted onto the centre of Bury St Edmunds. The building (Hopkins Architects; 2007-08) had a rounded shape with arched entrances and was clad in aluminium lozenges. The much larger anchor store designed for Liverpool One (Groupe 6/BDP; 2008) also displayed a fondness for curves, while glass panels distracted from the mass of the building on Lord Street.

Debenhams in Bury St Edmunds. Following a proposal to convert the redundant store into a cinema, it was occupied by Primark in 2024
(Creative Commons © Bob Jones).
Debenhams in Liverpool One, photographed from the upper walkway on South John Street in 2009. It was taken over by M&S in 2023 (© K. Morrison).

One of the very last purpose-built Debenhams’ stores to open was a two-level block in Roaring Meg Retail Park, Stevenage (McDonald Architects; 2017). While the exterior was dark and brooding, the bright interior was arranged around a central void ringed by galleries with glass balustrades. The contractors, Simpson York, had worked on over 20 projects for Debenhams over a 15 year period.

Closing sale. Debenhams in Stevenage had been awarded ‘Best New Store’ by Retail Week in 2018. It was one of nine stores taken over by M&S after Debenhams collapsed (© K. Morrison).

Debenhams entered administration twice: first in April 2019 and then again, during the first Covid lockdown, in April 2020. On the second occasion it was announced that the company would be liquidated, though the brand and website were bought by Boohoo. The last of Debenhams’ 124 UK stores closed in May 2021.

Slowly but surely, as former stores are remodelled or redeveloped, fewer traces of Debenhams’ long history remain on British high streets.

Text copyright Kathryn A. Morrison (AI scraping not permitted)

READ MORE about Debenhams and other department store groups and chains in Kathryn A Morrison, Chain Stores in the Golden Age of the British High Street, Liverpool University Press (to be published May 2025).

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Stores of the John Lewis Partnership

Posted on January 30, 2025 by buildingourpast

The John Lewis Partnership currently (2025) operates 36 stores in the UK, mainly in England. Many of these stores occupy sleek modern buildings in shopping centres or retail parks, in marginal positions with ample parking. A dwindling minority still occupy historic town-centre sites, the key examples being John Lewis in Oxford Street and Peter Jones in Chelsea. Others may be found in Welwyn Garden City (formerly Welwyn Department Store), Norwich (formerly Bonds) and Reading (formerly Heelas).

Having been destroyed in the Blitz, the Oxford Street side of John Lewis’s flagship store was rebuilt in 1955-60 (Slater & Uren). Barbara Hepworth’s ‘Winged Figure’ was installed on the side elevation in 1963 (© K. Morrison).
Like Peter Jones 20 years earlier, the new John Lewis store of 1955-60 bucked the trend by including lightwells (© Historic England Archive).

The business began in 1864, when John Lewis left his job at Peter Robinson’s to open a small draper’s shop at 132 Oxford Street. This quickly expanded and was rebuilt in the 1880s. Lewis’s son, John Spedan Lewis, joined the business aged 19 in 1904.

Peter Jones in Sloane Square, Chelsea, was taken over after its founder died. It was largely rebuilt in 1932-36 (Slater & Moberley with William Crabtree) with a pioneering curved curtain wall, but parts of the older store survive to the rear (© Historic England Archive).

The first step in the formation of a store group was the purchase of Peter Jones in Chelsea in 1905. T. J. Harries & Co. in Oxford Street followed in 1928 and thenceforth traded as John Lewis’s ‘East House’. Shortly afterwards a public limited company was formed and a new profit-sharing Partnership announced. This scheme had been germinating in the mind of John Spedan Lewis for years.

The firm expanded beyond London in 1933, with Jessop & Son in Nottingham and Lance & Lance in Weston-super-Mare, followed by Knight & Lee in Southsea and Tyrrell & Green in Southampton. The small Waitrose grocery chain was acquired in 1937.

Tyrrell & Green’s new store – rebuilt after bombing – opened in 1956. It was demolished after John Lewis relocated to West Quay in 2000 (© K. Morrison).

Peter Jones was rebuilt on an ambitious scale in the mid-1930s. Work then began on John Lewis’s ‘West House’, enlarged by the absorption of D. H. Evans’s old site. The block facing Cavendish Square, by Slater & Moberley, had been completed before war broke out in 1939. The older building was bombed in the early 1940s, as were Lance & Lance (closed 1956), Knight & Lee (rebuilt 1959) and Tyrrell & Green (rebuilt 1956). Throughout these years, John Lewis’s own building company undertook work on its stores.

Cole Brothers in Sheffield in 2000, two years before it was rebranded ‘John Lewis’. Its closure was announced in 2021 (© K. Morrison).

Selfridge Provincial Stores, a group formed in 1926, was taken over in 1940. This added 15 stores to John Lewis’s portfolio, including Cole Brothers in Sheffield, George Henry Lee in Liverpool, Robert Sayle in Cambridge, The Bon Marche in Brixton and John Barnes in North London. At least one of the new acquisitions – Quin & Axten in Brixton – became a casualty of the Second World War, while several others were quickly sold off.

The Bon Marche in Brixton, regarded as the oldest purpose-built department store in Britain, was closed by the Partnership in 1975. It ‘did not fit well into the Partnership’s vision of the future’ (© K. Morrison).

Two major purchases of the early 1950s were Bainbridges in Newcastle (1952) and Heelas in Reading (1953). Because Bainbridges was organised into 23 departments by 1849 – albeit selling the traditional range of drapery and furnishing goods – it has been hailed as the world’s oldest department store. But definitions of ‘department store’ are many and varied, so the claim remains debateable. Other contenders include, for example, Harding, Howell & Co. in Pall Mall.

Bainbridge & Co., Market Street, Newcastle, in Edwardian times. It relocated to Eldon Square in 1976 and was rebranded in 2001 (© Historic England Archive).
Heelas, Reading, was largely rebuilt in 1979-84. Like Bainbridges, it was rebranded in 2001 (© K. Morrison).

Central buying and the John Lewis identity were gradually imposed on stores after the Second World War. The Jonelle brand was introduced in 1957. In 1962-63 a new warehouse and computer centre was built in Stevenage. Designed by Yorke, Rosenberg & Mardall with Felix Candela, this was an open-sided structure with a shell concrete roof (now Costco). Prior to 1963 the group’s main depot had been Clearings, a warehouse built in Chelsea in the 1930s. From 1980 the Stevenage depot was supplemented by Blakelands in Milton Keynes, which provided larger spaces.

The move into shopping centres started in 1972, when Jessops relocated to the Victoria Centre in Nottingham. This was followed in 1976 by Bainbridges’ move to Eldon Square. New stores opened in Edinburgh’s St James Centre in 1973 and at Brent Cross in 1976. In Milton Keynes, in 1979, the Partnership occupied the anchor store at the east end of the mall, balanced by House of Fraser (Dickins & Jones) to the west.

John Lewis, Milton Keynes Mall (© K. Morrison)
John Lewis’s Aberdeen store was one of 16 outlets that closed during the Coronavirus pandemic. This extraordinary Northern Co-operative Society store, which has been described as a Brutalist ziggurat, was built in 1966-70 and became a branch of John Lewis in 1989 (© Louise Blakeman).

Shopping centres allowed the Partnership to benefit from shared facilities. But through the 1980s John Lewis continued to acquire traditional town-centre stores. These included Lewis’s in Bristol (closed 1998), Bond’s in Norwich, Welwyn Department Store in Welwyn Garden City and The Northern Co-operative Society in Aberdeen (closed 2021). In parallel with this, the move into shopping centres continued unabated, for example in Peterborough (Queensgate; 1982). Later stores attached to malls included Cribbs Causeway (1998), Bluewater (1999), Glasgow (Buchanan Galleries; 1999) and Cambridge (2007).

John Lewis closed its Peterborough store in 2021: this shows the upper mall level with closure posters. In 2024 House of Fraser announced plans to take over the space (© K. Morrison).
The bright, open interior of John Lewis in Kingston upon Thames (1990), with sophisticated roof lighting (© Historic England Archive).

In recent decades, department stores associated with malls have assumed a bolder architectural presence than their predecessors in the 1970s and 1980s. Several John Lewis stores have taken the form of stand-alone structures, lightly connected to malls by pedestrian bridges or walkways, and clad in eye-catching panels of coloured or digitally printed glass. Examples of this approach included Leicester (The Shires; 2008), Liverpool (Liverpool One; 2008), Cardiff (St David’s; 2009) and Leeds (2016).

The Leeds store, picking up the leitmotif of Acme’s Victoria Gate development, is wrapped in a network of hefty lozenges. More elegant intersecting arcading adds interest to the rectilinear High Street façade of John Lewis in Cheltenham (Haskoll; 2018), evoking the town’s Regency heyday. This store superseded the post-modern Beechwood Shopping Centre, which had replaced an old Woolworths’ store in 1991. Evidently the scheme was viable because John Lewis could retain the centre’s car park.

John Lewis, Leicester (© K. Morrison).
John Lewis rebranded its George Henry Lee store in Liverpool in 2002 and relocated to Liverpool One in 2008 (© Historic England Archive).

John Lewis closed 16 outlets during the pandemic including fully fledged department stores in Aberdeen, Birmingham, Peterborough, Sheffield, Watford and York, plus eight stores that had been branded ‘John Lewis At Home’, a format introduced in Poole in 2009. The newest of these stores – Grand Central, Birmingham – had opened as recently as 2015.

For the present, the Partnership seems to be concentrating on upgrading existing store environments rather than opening new stores.

Text copyright Kathryn A. Morrison (AI scraping not permitted)

Read more about department store groups and chains in Kathryn A Morrison, Chain Stores in the Golden Age of the British High Street, Liverpool University Press (to be published May 2025).

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