Netto, Old Fold Road, Gateshead (28 May 2010)

Less than six months after the carve-up of the Netto estate was confirmed, the Danish supermarket fascia is well on its way to disappearing from the UK retail landscape.

Haldanes – currently distracted by the collapse of its eponymous chain – was the first to complete conversion of its 20 acquired stores, with all now trading as UGO. Meanwhile, Iceland and Morrisons are in the midst of revamping the Netto sites that they acquired, with some stores – such as the new Morrisons in Tamworth, which I hope to visit later this week – already trading.

Former Netto, Tamworth, before conversion to Morrisons (4 Apr 2011)

Asda itself, of course, has the biggest job, with 147 ex-Netto stores set to be switched over to its new Asda Supermarkets fascia. The first conversions – including Stainforth, below – opened last month, and I’m told by Asda’s PR people that the rest will be finished by November – an impressive rate of more than five conversions a week.

Here on Tyneside, three stores – in Westerhope (Stamfordham Road), Lemington (Northumberland Road) and Gateshead (Old Fold Road) – closed their doors as Netto last Saturday (11 June), and are each set to reopen as Asda Supermarkets on Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 June following a £500,000 refit. For stats buffs, that’s around five times the reported cost of converting a Netto to a UGO.

Early conversion of an ex-Netto in Stainforth, South Yorkshire

However, where Haldanes’ UGO stores are very much an adaptation of the existing Netto fitout, Asda’s revamps are more extensive, involving stripping the stores back to their shell.

In terms of what the converted stores will offer the customer, Asda’s PR – like UGO’s – flags up the key themes of low prices, improved ranging and greater convenience.

On price, Asda’s main headline is that “all newly converted Netto stores will charge the same low price as every other Asda in the UK” – a simple, effective and powerful message that is likely to resonate with shoppers. It should also avoid scaring off loyal Netto customers with prices that are too high, a potential problem that fellow blogger Steve Dresser and Soult’s Retail View readers have highlighted in relation to UGO.

UGO (former Netto) store, Hartlepool (4 May 2011)

On range, Asda again echoes UGO in pledging that customers will be able to “complete a full weekly shop”, with each of the new stores featuring the the full breadth of Asda’s own-label food ranges, including Smart Price, Chosen By You, Extra Special, Good For You, Free From and Organics. However, the increase in product lines (SKUs) from 1,800 to 10,000 rather puts UGO’s 3,000 (or even the now-defunct Haldanes’ 7,000) in the shade.

Finally, in terms of convenience, Asda Supermarkets’ longer opening hours, extra services (PayPoint, National Lottery, cash machines), and the provision of a collection service for online orders should all go some way to increasing footfall and basket size from Netto levels.

Former Somerfield, Adelaide Centre, Benwell (28 May 2010)

Before the new Tyneside Asda stores open in a couple of weeks’ time, I should probably try and check out the recently opened Asda Supermarket in Benwell’s Adelaide Centre. This store opened on 19 May, but is a former Somerfield site rather than an ex-Netto.

Given this acquisition, I was curious about the implications for the Netto at Mill Lane, less than a mile away, which is among the 147 stores that Asda is supposed to be keeping. Tucked down a side street and housed in a corrugated shed, this is hardly the most glamorous of Netto sites, yet it provides an important service to a community that otherwise lacks much in the way of affordable grocery store provision.

I’m assured, however, that the Mill Lane Netto will still be converted to an Asda Supermarket in the coming months, though as yet there’s no confirmed date for when that changeover will take place. I will, naturally, give an update as soon as I receive further news.

In the meantime, do feel free to share your experiences of visiting any newly opened Asda Supermarkets. Whether you’re an ex-Netto shopper or someone who’s been attracted from elsewhere, I – and your fellow Soult’s Retail View readers – will be keen to hear your reactions.

Former Linthorpe Road Woolworths, Middlesbrough

Last week’s blog post about the long-closed former Woolworths in Benwell seems to have opened the floodgates to lots of comments and insights about other nearly-forgotten Woolies in the North East – many thanks indeed for all your contributions!

While Seamaster reminisced about the old Woolies in Seaham – closed in the 1980s – TAS was able to confirm that the long-departed store in Crook was, indeed, in the building that now houses Boots. Meanwhile, Peter shared his memories of buying film brochures from the former Byker Woolies in Shields Road (another ’80s casualty), while John from Gateshead alerted me, via Twitter, to a former Woolworths in Felling that I never knew existed – another one to add to the visiting list!

Former Woolworths (now Decorflair), Shields Road, Byker

Given this present flurry of archive delving, I figured it might be a good moment to recap the known locations of old Woolworths stores in the North East. First, here are the 33 Woolworths that kept going until the bitter end, and only closed down in December 2008 and January 2009 following Woolworths’ administration:

• Alnwick (#822)
• Ashington (#229)
• Barnard Castle (#534)
• Berwick-upon-Tweed (#232)
• Billingham (#820)
• Bishop Auckland (#116)
• Blyth (#544)
• Byker (Newcastle Shopping Park) (#1256)
• Chester-le-Street (#267)
• Consett (#388)
• Darlington (#28)
• Durham (#321)
• Gateshead (#154)
• Gosforth (#716)
• Hartlepool (#322)
• Hexham (#931)
• Houghton-le-Spring (#488)
• Jarrow (#434)
• MetroCentre (#1238)
• Middlesbrough (#1200)
• Morpeth (#439)
• Newcastle upon Tyne (Clayton Street) (#340)
• Newton Aycliffe (#1007)
• North Shields (#426)
• Peterlee (#987)
• Redcar (#275)
• South Shields (#104)
• Spennymoor (#278)
• Stanley (#873)
• Stockton-on-Tees (Castlegate) (#336)
• Stockton-on-Tees (Portrack Lane) (#1232)
• Wallsend (#351)
• Whitley Bay (#277)

Photographs and links to previous blog posts about those stores are given on the ‘Old Woolies’ page.

Next, these are the 16 19 North East stores, that I know of, that had closed down prior to Woolworths’ administration. As far as I’m aware, these are all stores that closed down years ago (i.e. the 1980s or earlier), with the exception of the Middlesbrough Music & Video shop (which reportedly shut in the early 1990s), and of course the large Sunderland store that only bit the dust in 2004:

• Benwell (#905)
• Blaydon
• Byker (63 Shields Road) [EDIT: Store # (276) sourced, 29 Oct 2010] 
• Crook
• Felling
• Killingworth (Woolco)
• Linthorpe Village
• Longbenton [EDIT: Added to list, 21 Jun 2010]
• Middlesbrough (Linthorpe Road) (#8)
• Middlesbrough (Music & Video, Hillstreet)
• New Washington (#1014) [EDIT: Added to list, 3 Jun 2010]
• Newcastle upon Tyne (Northumberland Street) (#27)
• North Kenton [EDIT: Added to list, 28 Jul 2010]
• Pennywell, Sunderland (#817)
• Seaham
• Stockton-on-Tees (High Street)
• Sunderland (Fawcett Street) (#144)
• Thornaby (Woolco)
• Washington Galleries (Woolco) (#2007)

Former Woolworths (now Primark), Sunderland

Former Woolworths, Benwell

In both the lists above, I’ve included the store numbers in brackets where I have them. Within the Woolworths business, these numbers provided each store with a unique identifier, and are repeatedly used in old editions of The New Bond, when referring to particular branches. They were still in use right until the end, however, as highlighted in this useful 2007 PDF.

Stores seem to have kept the same number throughout their lifetimes – South Shields, for example, is referred to as store number 104 in the 2007 list, just as it was in an issue of The New Bond from fifty years earlier.

As far as I am aware, the store numbers also correspond to the order in which those shops were opened – hence the original UK Woolworths in Liverpool being #1; new stores mentioned in the February 1956 edition of The New Bond ranging from #913 (Kingsbridge) to #921 (Warminster); and the most recent Big W sites (such as Byker) having store numbers in the 1200s.

Where a store was rebuilt or relocated – Stockton-on-Tees’ #336, for example – it seems to have kept its original number; however, a new store opening up in a town that had had a Woolworths in the past (such as Middlesbrough), seems to have been allocated a new number (hence the modern Hillstreet branch being #1200, rather than taking over the former #8).

I’d be interested to know if there’s a complete list of store numbers these out there; I certainly haven’t come across one as yet, though it is possible to find the number for many stores by searching or browsing at Woolworths Reunited and 100thBirthday.co.uk.

Equally, if you know of any old Woolies in the North East that are missing from the list above, please add a comment below. I very much doubt that the list is comprehensive, and suspect that there may well be further examples, similar to Stockton, where an earlier store was replaced by a new one elsewhere in the same town.

Copies of The New Bond

One of the things I most love about researching retail history is the way that interesting stories can emerge from the tiniest leads. 

As a Woolworths enthusiast, I’ve recently discovered that a fantastic starting point for retail history nuggets of a Woolies nature is The New Bond, the ‘house journal’ of F. W. Woolworth & Co. Ltd that was published between 1935 and 1972. I’ve picked up a few editions from eBay – all from between 1956 and 1960 – and each one gives a fascinating snapshot of the business at the time. 

Dinkie - "famous the world over for curlers and hairgrips"

Photographs of award presentations for long-serving staff sit alongside news of new stores, latest fashion patterns, recent staff weddings, articles and ‘appreciations’, all interspersed with colourful adverts for Dinkie curlers and Polythene Food Bags. The tone is all very quaint and paternalistic, of course, but some of today’s retailers could do worse than picking up some tips from how Woolies communicated and engaged with its staff half a century ago. 

This jacket would apparently be "ideal for travel and sight-seeing"

From a historical point of view, one of the most useful things about The New Bond is the way in which it immortalises Woolworths stores that had already closed many, many years before the whole business finally collapsed in 2008 – shops such as those in Ripley (now Amber Value) or Byker (now Decorflair), for instance, that shut down in the 80s or 90s. In many case, little detail of these stores being old Woolworths can be found on the web (or on site), meaning that written testimony (such as The New Bond), old photographs and postcards, and the memories of those old enough to remember become the main sources of evidence. 

Here in the North East, I’m still using such sources to come across former Woolworths stores that I never knew existed, including ones in Blaydon (long demolished, and which I’m still planning to blog about), Sunderland’s Pennywell estate, and Crook in County Durham. I’m yet to do any research into the Crook store, but a quick look at Google Street View makes me think that it was more than likely in the premises currently occupied by Boots – a building that has all the usual architectural attributes of a purpose-built Woolies.

Reference to Benwell Woolworths

On that topic, I was intrigued to come across a reference in the June 1960 edition of The New Bond to a Woolworths store – number 905 – in the Newcastle suburb of Benwell. It crops up twice under the ‘Changes and Appointments’ column for ‘Liverpool District’, listing Mr W D Johnson, Manager, who had left Benwell to go and manage a new store (1034) in Stretford, and who was replaced by Mr T R Pearson, previously Deputy Manager of the Durham shop (321). Needless to say, I was completely unaware that Benwell had ever had a Woolworths, and was determined to find out more. 

Fortunately, the obvious Google search for ‘Woolworths Benwell’ struck gold, bringing up a fascinating local heritage guide to Benwell’s Adelaide Terrace shops, including a photograph labelled “Looking west along the Terrace from Woolworths which was originally the Adelaide Cinema, c.1969″. As you might expect, I was now even more fascinated, given that there can’t be very many Woolworths that ever opened up in former cinemas.

Adelaide Terrace from Woolworths, Benwell, c.1969. Photograph from 'Along the Terrace'

Searching the web for anything to do with the Adelaide Cinema brought up very little of use, so I turned to my trusty Cinemas of Newcastle book by Frank Manders in the hope that it would enlighten me. Sure enough, the two-page spread about the ‘Adelaide Picture Hall’ added some detail to the story, revealing that it opened, as Benwell’s first cinema, in 1910; around a decade later, a two-storey stone-faced annexe was built in order to create a new foyer.

Adelaide Cinema, Benwell, c.1937. Photograph from 'Cinemas of Newcastle'

Manders reports, however, that the cinema only lasted another twenty or so years, officially closing on 1 February 1943. After use as a depot for Pathe, the book confirms that the the property became a Woolworths store, and, at the time of writing (1991), was “now a discount autoparts shop, recognisable as a former cinema from the side and rear.”  After another Google Street View excursion, followed by a visit in person, we duly have a photograph of Benwell’s old Woolies – still in use, indeed, as a discount autoparts shop.

The same view today (28 May 2010)

The chimneys may have gone, and windows and a shopfront have been punched into the old auditorium, but it’s remarkable quite how similar the building still looks to how it did in 1937. Viewed from the side, Manders is absolutely right about the building’s past role as a cinema being easy to spot.

Former Woolworths in Benwell (28 May 2010)

As always, however, there is still lots more to find out. For example, what year did the Woolworths store open, and when did it close? Do photographs exist of the building when it was in use as a Woolworths? And what memories do local people still have of shopping or working at the store? Knowing the contributions that readers to this blog have made in the past, I suspect it may not be too long before we have some answers!