From a single hat shop in Bradford, Greenwoods expanded to become the largest privately owned men’s outfitter in Britain. It was a ubiquitous presence in high streets from the 1930s until 2019.

The story begins in 1860, when the Greenwood family opened a hat shop in Westgate, Bradford. This was an established business, take over from Stringer Lake. Company lore maintained that Lake vanished into thin air, but it turns out that he left to open a shop in Shipley. The Greenwoods initially sold and renovated silk hats, but soon expanded their range to include caps.

In 1894 Greenwoods became an outfitter, but it was a member of the fourth generation, Walter Herbert Greenwood, who decided to multiply, starting with a branch shop in Bradford in 1922. Walter had opened 26 shops by 1932, when Greenwoods (Hosiers & Outfitters) Ltd. was formed. By the outbreak of war in 1939 the chain had mushroomed to 76 shops, scattered throughout North-East England, mostly in Yorkshire. The core customers were working men.

In 1934, distinctive shopfitting – influenced by chains like Burton’s and Meakers – was produced for Greenwoods by Sharp & Law of Bradford. Shopfronts were faced in pale green Vitrolite with black highlights. The lettering of Greenwoods name was outlined in neon tubes with an underscore carrying the phrase ‘(hosiers and outfitters) Ltd.’ or ‘for men’s wear’. To either side of the name was the logo: a coat of arms with an oak tree, a boar’s head crest, and the motto ‘sturdy as the oak’. Towns with important branches were listed at transom level. Windows were crammed with as many goods as possible to ensure that ‘the shopper knows what he will pay before entering the shop’.

Walter Greenwood was closely associated with Sam Chippendale of Arndale Properties, and decided to undertake a major development of his own in 1956. He bought Bunney’s Ltd., a landmark building in the commercial heart of Liverpool. The store was redeveloped in a modern style, with shops at street level. Smaller developments followed in Llandudno, Rhyl, Malton and Driffield, and properties were purchased in Manchester and Leeds. Greenwoods’ property arm became a lucrative parallel business to its chain of 167 shops.

The shopfronts were updated in the 1960s. Over striped green and white awnings, the letter ‘G’ and the ‘Greenwoods’ name were displayed in illuminated boxes which projected from a blue pearl granite surround, with the slogan, ‘the mans shop’. When the Welsh Hodges chain was bought in 1962, its shops were revamped in a similar fashion. Hodges was run by Brian Greenwood, who later acquired, and tried to revive, Dunn’s: another outfitter which had originated as a hatter.

Greenwoods’ own chain, dressed in various green liveries, dwindled in the 21st century, as it passed through the hands of different owners, bobbing in and out of administration until 2019, when it was finally liquidated.

The ghost of Greenwoods lingers in several shopping streets, where premises have failed to attract new occupants.

Main Sources: Greenwood’s Centenary Supplement, Bradford Telegraph & Argos, 26 April 1960; Brian Greenwood, Shop! Or Clogs to Clogs in Three Generations – Well, Almost, Durham, 2009.

Text copyright K. Morrison. No AI scraping permitted.

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