The old Woolies store that’s gone for a Burton

Graham Soult

Retail consultant, writer, blogger; helping retailers via CannyInsights.com and CannySites.com. Say hello on Twitter at @soult!

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13 Responses

  1. Fearn says:

    I remember catching the bus into Burton with mum in the early 1960s to go shopping day and regularly visited F W Woolworth & Co as it was known in the High St. I remember seeing the counters with the short glass dividers on them to separate the various items. From memory the prices were clipped onto the dividers. There were all sorts of things to buy, I remember mum buying handkerchiefs, Good Companion jigsaws, and later on inflatable plastic toys. I also remember the treat of buying a Deans children’s classics book for 2/6d, but cannot remember whether this was at Woolworths or another shop. We would often go out the back of the store onto the area by the River Trent. I still have two glass hyacinth jars that mum bought at the store during the 1960s for about 6d.

  2. David Warren says:

    I was assistant manager at Fine Fare in high street opposite woolworths in 1974, and my mother Moira Warren ran the cafe at the rear of the store which became known for its huge home made burgers. When the cafe closed she ran the furniture department which occupied the rear of the store including the space where the cafe had been. Later she became the assistant store manager under Ernest (Ernie) Gould but sadly she passed away at the age of 49 in 1982.
    I have fond memories of when the fine fare store had a relaunch as shoppers paradise and two of the actors from the champions TV series Alexandra Bastedo and American Stuart Damon came to cut the tape, accompanied strangely by The Wombles. The staff of Woolworths including my mother leaned out of the upstairs window of woolies wolf whistling at Stuart Damon.
    Dave Warren now living near St Ives in Cornwall.

    • David Warren says:

      In my comments above, I should make it clear that my mother Moira Warren was at WOOLWORTHS not Fine Fare………

  3. in your report you say that the original Woolworth’s store in high street, Burton was smaller than the coopers square branch. That is not true. The high street branch was considerably larger. If you go to the site now, the public houses have beer gardens and yards at the rear. When it was a Woolies, the store ran right back to the walkway at the park at the back. The doors onto that park also led from a snack bar which Woolworth’s operated at the back of the store. About a third of the store was demolished at the back when the two pubs moved in.

    i think that the reason why Woolworth’s moved to a smaller store at coopers square was because the town centre had moved away from where it had been and they needed a more centrally located store, even if that was smaller than their original store.

  4. Barbara Price says:

    My name is now Barbara Morrow

  5. Barbara Price says:

    I worked in Woolworths for 8 years from 1952.We had wednesday afternoon off every week and in the fourth week we had the full day off.Happy days,Thank you for publishing this photo

  6. Craig M says:

    Whilst I’m not old enough to remember the original Woolworth store in Burton it moving a year before I was born. I can Rember the original site being used as a discount warehouse store in the late 80”s. I can remember this well as everytime I visited Burton with my Grandmother we visited the ‘Discount warehouse’ (as my it was always refered to in my family). After that closed in the early 90’s the building was used as some form of indoor market before that closed and was converted in to the two pubs.

  7. Retrogadget says:

    I remember shopping in the Woolworths on Burton High Street. Back in those days (the 70’s), High Street was the hub of Burton’s shopping area with the now derelict Bargates shopping centre with its Liptons supermarket at one end, and the Market Hall at the other end of the street. A few doors along from Woolworths was Timothy Whites,which like Woolies had an exit at the rear of the store leading to the banks of the River Trent, St Modwens Church and the Market Place. On the corner of High Street/Station Street diagonally opposite Woolworths was Marks and Spencers, now located in Coopers Square.

  1. February 14, 2011

    […] told me that he’d visited both Burton upon Trent and Coalville in the last couple of days, and that both town’s ex-Woolies still show no sign […]

  2. February 25, 2011

    […] the news of B&M Bargains opening in the former Woolworths store in Burton, Staffordshire. As I mentioned last month, the 11,000 sq ft Coopers Square unit has remained empty since Woolworths’ closure more than […]

  3. May 3, 2011

    […] stores had long ago adopted the 1970s red and white ‘Woolworth’ fascia, as recently seen at the back of the Burton-upon-Trent store. The shop itself looks empty, so I suspect that this particular view may have been taken not […]

  4. August 30, 2011

    […] in January I blogged about Burton upon Trent’s original Woolworths store, and promised to turn my attention in a future post to the nearby city of […]

  5. September 7, 2018

    […] Source: Soult G […]

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