The building in question

Since I first blogged about it just over a year ago under the heading ‘Is this shop in Shields Road, Byker an old Woolies?’, the history of the building in question at 47-49 Shields Road (pictured above) has prompted quite a discussion – but, until now, no definitive answer.

In the course of the discussions, we have already established that Byker *did* have a Woolworths prior to the most recent incarnation (store #1256) at Newcastle Shopping Park. However, this was located further up Shields Road at number 63, in premises occupied by Decorflair until just a few weeks ago.

Former Woolworths (now Decorflair), Shields Road, Byker

Through reader contributions, we knew that Woolies had traded from that site since at least 1963, while an old newspaper cutting from Newcastle’s Local Studies Library revealed that the store closed on 1 June 1985.

How the Chronicle broke the news

However, none of this explained Byker Woolworths’ store number being 276. As I’ve noted before, each new Woolies store had a unique store number, with the first store (Liverpool, in 1910) given the number 1, and subsequent numbers allocated (usually) in chronological order. On this basis, 276 suggested an opening date of August or September 1927, raising the question of whether Byker’s Woolies had indeed occupied a different site prior to the Decorflair building.

Now, Brian E Clark seems to have come up with the answer:

Your question… (was this a Woolies shop) It certainly was! I am 70 years old, and spent the first 23 years of my life living in the Old Byker of 178 Kendal Street. I can remember that the shop front was re-set back from the building line on the left side of the frontage 3 or 4 feet… The shop moved further up Shields Road as you know, but this must have been in the late 50s early 60s. I do not remember it having an upstairs for the public.

So, there we have it – confirmation, it would seem, that the building at 47-49 Shields Road was indeed a purpose-built Woolworths, probably moving to the new location at number 63 sometime between the late 1950s and 1963.

Many thanks indeed to Brian for providing the missing piece of information, and to everyone else who has contributed to this particular discussion so far. Thanks to George Tullin and Peter, we already have a shot of number 63 in use as a Woolworths; all we need now is to find an old photograph depicting the original (47-49 Shields Road) Byker Woolies in all its glory – something that has, as yet, eluded me.

Former Woolworths in Shields Road. Photo from Newcastle City Council, P&T Image Archive

Since I first wrote about back it in January, we’re still yet to establish whether the A&S Discount Store building in Byker’s Shields Road (below) was ever an old Woolies.

It’s not for want of trying, though – with 16 comments and rising, my initial blog about the property has attracted more reaction than any other to date.

An old Woolies? Maybe, maybe not

However, thanks to everyone’s comments and a bit of digging around of my own, we can piece together a fair bit about the building in Shields Road that definitely was a former Woolworths – the present Decorflair property at number 63, next to the old Beavan’s department store. (Incidentally, someone who knows better than I do told me off last week for mispronouncing Beavan’s – apparently its name was pronounced as ‘Be-vans’, not as ‘Bee-vans’. Sorry!)

Previous accounts from Mike and Peter had indicated that the Woolies store was certainly around on that site in about 1963, and was still there in the early 1980s. Now, the simultaneous unearthing of an old photo (above) by both Peter and George Tullin, shows the store in what was presumably its 1950s or 60s heyday. Here’s a cropped version of the image, showing the Woolworths store closer up, with its gold signage and carmine fascia clearly discernable – even in black and white:

Closer up view of former Woolworths in Shields Road. Photo from Newcastle City Council, P&T Image Archive

Peter also flagged up another shot of the store – this time in colour, and taken from the opposite direction – that is probably from a few years later.

Fifty years or so on, it’s remarkable how similar the building looked then to how it does now – even down to the blocked-off first-floor windows. As is the case with most old Woolies, however, the historic shopfront and fascia are long gone, replaced with something much more ordinary:

Former Woolworths (now Decorflair), Shields Road, Byker

Previously I wrote about how an old copy of the Woolies staff magazine, The New Bond, had alerted me to the presence of an old Woolworths site in Benwell, another Newcastle suburb. I’m pleased to report that The New Bond once again proved a useful source here, with an issue that I recently acquired shedding just a little more light onto Woolworths’ presence in Byker.

Cover of The New Bond, April 1941

Published in April 1941, this particular 122-page issue of The New Bond is rather moving. Badged as a ‘Forces Souvenir Issue’, it features news, letters and photographs from those staff members engaged in the British forces or civilian defence. The final page includes a list of those promoted, commissioned, missing or killed in action, as well as a lovely, surpringly cheerful letter from Pte Terence Hannan, sent from a German POW camp, with the name of his former store – South Shields, 104 – underneath.

Terence Hannan's letter (click to enlarge)

The reference to Byker, however, is on page 92, where the caption beneath a photograph of AC2 (Aircraftman Second Class) S. Corson, from the RAF, shows that he was previously engaged at ‘Byker, 276′.

AC2 S. Corson from Byker 276

As I explained before, each Woolies had a unique store number, usually allocated sequentially from the earliest (1, in Liverpool) to the newest (e.g. 1256 for Byker’s Newcastle Shopping Park store, only opened in 2004). However, prior to spotting this reference in The New Bond, I hadn’t known the store number of the old Byker branch.

Helpfully, the store numbering system means that even if you don’t know the opening date of a particular store, knowing its store number allows you to make a very good estimate, simply by finding out when the stores either side of it opened. By referring to the useful (but incomplete) store list at 100thBirthday.co.uk, we can establish that store #274, in Rochdale, opened on 23 July 1927, and store #280, in North Finchley, on 17 September 1927.

This suggests that the Byker store opened in August or September 1927 – once again raising the possibility that the  Decorflair building (which, admittedly, is hard to date due to the lack of architectural features) may not have been Woolies’ original site in Byker.

After all, the 1920s and 30s was when the distinctive Woolies architectural style was prevalent in the chain’s newly built stores. Take a look, for example, at the old London Road Woolworths in Brighton - store #288 – which opened on 29 October 1927 (long since demolished, sadly, and replaced by a building that now houses Aldi). It may just be coincidence, but the property’s architectural similarity to Byker’s A&S Discount Store building is uncanny.

Is this an old Woolies? The jury's still out

So, we have an opening date – but what about when the store closed? Well, there’s progress on that front too.

Visiting Newcastle’s excellent Local Studies Library a few months ago, I was searching through old retail-related cuttings for something else entirely, but spotted an article – from the Evening Chronicle on 30 April 1985 – about the closure announcement of the Byker Woolworths.

How the Chronicle broke the news

Under the heading ‘Another Woolies to close’ (the ‘another’ referring, presumably, to the flagship Northumberland Street store (#27) which had closed down in, I believe, 1984), the article read as follows:

Another Tyneside Woolworth store has been sold and starts its closing down sale tomorrow. The store in Shields Road, Byker, Newcastle, will finally close on June 1, with the loss of 22 jobs.

This is another blow to Shields Road as a shopping centre. Mr Brian Blackburn, who has been managing the store for 14 months and with Woolworth for 12 years, said: “It is a very sad day.”

The premises have been sold to J. T. Clough whose registered office is in Blyth, but it is not yet known what the site will operate as. Of the 22 jobs to go, eight are full time and 14 are part time.

Mr Blackburn, 31, said: “The company will be making arrangements to try to find alternative employment for the permanent staff in other branches.”

Woolworth had given the store a short extension to its life in the hope overheads could be reduced and store profits increased.

The last big store closure to hit Shields Road was in last July when the J. T. Parrish department store closed. However, it was leased to rival company Michael Parrish Ltd., who started trading in September.

So there we have it – Byker’s Woolies seemingly opened in 1927, and closed on 1 June 1985 – though the unanswered question of whether it occupied the same site for all that time looks like it will run and run…

Still not sure if this is an old Woolies or not... (7 Mar 2010)

Back in January I posted a shot of what is now the A&S Discount store in Byker’s Shields Road, questioning whether it had ever been a Woolworths store, given its architectural similarities to many of the other former Woolies that I’d visited. [UPDATE: We now know it WAS - see

Since then, I’ve received many welcome comments and observations, visited even more old Woolies that look very similar to the said building in Byker, and trawled through quite a few old photographs of Byker (such as this lot) to try and find some evidence of the property’s past.

...but most people seem to agree that it *does* look like one (7 Mar 2010)

Though I’m little closer to identifying whether the building once was a Woolworths or not, information from Mike and his mother – both from Byker – suggests that it certainly hasn’t been a Woolies for 45 years or more. While Mike and his mum do remember a Woolworths on Shields Road, that store occupied a different building all together to the one that I blogged about:

Woolworths on Shields Road was further up where the Decorflair store is now. I confirmed this with a reliable source… my mother! (we are from Byker!) It goes back at least 1965 and probably a lot earlier… I can just remember going there as a kid in the 80’s. Not sure when it exactly closed, but it must have been the mid to late 80’s…

I took a photo of the Decorflair store today (below), though it’s difficult to see much of the shopfront when the shutters are down. Happily, Google Street View comes to the rescue, showing a frontage that certainly retains the appearance of a 1960s Woolworths store.

Former Woolworths (now Decorflair), Shields Road, Byker, with the former Beavan's department store in the background (7 Mar 2010)

Needless to say, if anyone has any further information about either the Decorflair-definite-Woolies or the A&S-possible-Woolies I’d be delighted to hear from you. Did the Decorflair Woolworths indeed supersede the A&S one, perhaps sometime in the 1950s or early 1960s? And do any old photos of that stretch of Shields Road exist – perhaps shots of the splendid former Beavan’s department store, showing glimpses of the two buildings in question either side of it?

Before I finish, it would be remiss of me not to update on yet another Byker Woolworths – the most recent incarnation, at Newcastle Shopping Park, which opened in 2004 and closed following the retailer’s administration. There’s not much to report though – it’s still empty, and looks no different to how it did back in September.

Former Woolworths, Newcastle Shopping Park, Byker (7 Mar 2010)

Given that it’s 95,000 sq ft anchor store remains vacant, Newcastle Shopping Park seems to be managing surprisingly well. The car park was certainly busy when I visited today, and the Asda Living store had plenty of customers in both the store and the cafe. I also noted that the former JJB Fitness Club has been rebranded as DW Sports Fitness since my last visit in September, following JJB’s March 2009 disposal of its fitness clubs business to Dave Whelan – the ex-footballer who had created JJB Sports in the first place, back in 1977, before selling his last stake thirty years later.

Looking ahead, it’s hard to imagine a retailer that would want to occupy the whole of the enormous former Woolworths site. It’s probably about the right size for Best Buy (opening its first UK stores this Spring) or a Currys Megastore, but those types of retailers are more likely to favour the busier, higher profile retail parks on Tyneside, such as Team Valley or Silverlink, for their flagship stores. Perhaps carving the unit up into two or three smaller stores will ultimately prove to be the best way forward?