Former Woolworths (now The Original Factory Shop), Chepstow (24 Mar 2011). Photograph by Alastair Leaver

Back in February I featured a batch of readers’ ex-Woolies pics, showcasing the former stores in Warrington (now Poundland), Batley (JBM Bargains) and Beverley (Boots). For its sins, Soult’s Retail View seems to have prompted people across the country to start photographing Woolworths sites, not just in this country but also further afield. So, here’s another trio of Woolies stores for you…

First up is the ex-Woolies in the Monmouthshire market town of Chepstow, which Alastair Leaver captured while visiting there a couple of weeks ago. Like quite a few other former Woolies in Wales – such as those in Porthmadog and Caernarvon – the site has been taken over by the expanding discount department store, The Original Factory Shop. As seems to be customary for that retailer, only minimal changes have been made to the property, with the recognisable Woolies shopfront still in place.

Former Woolworths (now The Original Factory Shop), Chepstow (24 Mar 2011). Photograph by Alastair Leaver

Just like its competitor B&M Bargains, The Original Factory Shop’s ability to reoccupy ex-Woolies sites with minimal fuss seems to work in its favour. The retailer reported a sales uplift of 23% in the six weeks preceding Christmas 2010, with a healthy like-for-likes uplift of 5%, and has plans to open another 35 stores during 2011.

In an uncertain economy, it’s hard to dispute that the retail industry is having a choppy time, with several new administrations – including Officers Club and Oddbins – in just the last week. It’s heartening, however, to see retailers such as The Original Factory Shop not just weathering the storm but really capitalising upon the opportunities left by others businesses’ weakness.

Former Woolworths (now B&M Bargains), Burton upon Trent (13 Mar 2011). Photograph by Martin Jarvis

B&M Bargains is another successful discount retailer doing just that. The 30,000 sq ft Gateshead flagship that I blogged about on April Fools Day may – for now – just be a flight of fancy, but I’ve regularly written about, and commended, the retailer’s ability to transform old Woolies into B&M stores in just a matter of days.

As I wrote in February, the old Burton upon Trent Woolworths, in the Coopers Square shopping centre, is one such location that B&M has recently taken over, with its new store opening there last month. Regular Midlands contributor Martin Jarvis kindly braved Coopers Square security to snap these shots of the busy B&M store.

Former Woolworths (now B&M Bargains), Burton upon Trent (13 Mar 2011). Photograph by Martin Jarvis

Expanding from 67 stores in mid-2008 to 197 two years later, B&M’s recent growth has been remarkable, much of it the result of snapping up former Woolies sites. However, as the stock of suitable ex-Woolies locations shrinks to a trickle, B&M’s presence on both high streets and retail parks gives it plenty of options – scope to continue expanding organically, while also making the occasional acquisition, such as last year’s Opus Homewares.

As in the paragraph above, I’ve had to develop quite a vocabulary for referring to the fact that Britain’s Woolworths is defunct, bringing out all the qualifiers such as ’ex’, ‘former’ and ‘collapsed’. However, the complicated history and fragmented legacy of the original, American F W Woolworth business means that there are still some places where ‘Woolworths’ stores are very much alive.

One such place is Germany, where reader Chris Exall captured a nighttime phone pic of this Woolworth-branded store, in the Bavarian town of Freising.

Woolworth, Freising, Germany (17 Jan 2011). Photograph by Chris Exall

Of course, Woolworth GmbH – the present-day chain of Woolworths stores in Germany and Austria – has nothing to do with its collapsed British namesake, though there is an element of shared history. Both are spin-offs from the American parent, the UK business having split off in 1982 and the German one as recently as 1998.

Given this heritage, its not surprising that the German business offers a vaguely familiar product mix – including stationery, homewares, toys and seasonal goods – though it also sells men’s and women’s clothing, ranges that the UK chain jettisoned back in the 1980s.

Ironically, Woolworths Germany itself filed for bankruptcy in April 2009, just a few months after the collapse of the UK chain, but the story has a happier outcome. In July last year, new investors saved the brand and around half the stores, resulting in a truncated chain of 158 ‘small department stores’, and there are ambitious plans to grow the business back up to 500 shops of between 10,000 and 20,000 sq ft each.

Germany’s Woolworths may not be quite the same Woolies as shoppers in Britain recall with such fondness. However, it’s pleasing to know that there’s at least one place in the world where high street Woolies shops not only live on, but are seen as having an exciting – and viable – future that celebrates and builds upon the business’s “proud tradition”.

B&M fascia

Many thanks to Lee Dymond and Martin, who both emailed me about 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 two years ago, but this has always seemed surprising given the shop’s busy location in a relatively modern indoor mall environment.

The news merely reinforces B&M’s status as one of the real profiters from Woolworths’ collapse, having snapped up tens of ex-Woolies stores across the country, including the one in nearby Lichfield.

Former Woolworths (now B&M Bargains), Lichfield (30 Sep 2010)

In the North East too, B&M has been rapidly expanding its presence by mopping up space that would never normally have become available, including large units in Stockton town centre, Whitley Bay and Chester-le-Street and, most recently, a portion of the old Big W at Portrack Lane.

B&M Bargains (former Woolworths), Chester-le-Street (24 Jan 2011)

Back in August, The Local Data Company suggested that 150 ex-Woolworths stores “may never be used as shops again” – a figure that, if true, would equate to almost one fifth of the former Woolies store estate.

I’ve always been slightly sceptical of these pessimistic projections, particularly given that my own research shows that 88% (45) of the 51 ex-Woolies sites across the North East, Cumbria and North Yorkshire have already been reoccupied for retail use.

Though the initial flood of new occupants for ex-Woolies sites has inevitably dwindled as the number of available sites reduces, B&M’s takeover of the Burton unit shows that demand has not yet dried up. Indeed, news reports from across the UK over the last few weeks show other discount retailers still on the ex-Woolies acquisition trail, such as The Original Factory Shop in Bargoed and the son-of-Ethel-Austin chain Life & Style in Swansea.

Former Woolworths, Clayton Street, Newcastle (27 Sep 2009)

Of the six former Woolies locations that remain empty in the North East, four – Peterlee, Wallsend, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough – already have a B&M store in the town centre or on a nearby retail park. However, with B&M Bargains not yet having a presence in Newcastle city centre, it wouldn’t surprise me if the vacant Clayton Street Woolies site was a target for the retailer in the coming months.

Despite the nearby extension of Eldon Square, and the recent arrival of some interesting independent shops and restaurants, Clayton Street remains very much a secondary, discount-led location, with Poundstretcher, charity shops, nail bars and the ubiquitous BrightHouse among its main draws.

With its in-your-face signage and minimal shop makeovers, B&M Bargains is not everyone’s first choice as a Woolies replacement. However, no-one can dispute the business’s recent success, and it’s certainly time for something to liven up a stretch of Clayton Street that has been empty and lifeless for far too long.

Shoppers World locations, 1975 (adapted from Woolworths Virtual Museum graphic)

It’s always good to receive updates on former Woolies sites that I’ve previously featured here at Soult’s Retail View, so I was pleased to get an email yesterday from Martin, a regular Midlands-based contributor.

He 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 of imminent reoccupation. Indeed, Coalville’s seems to have taken a step backwards, with Martin reporting that “The ‘Mather Jamie’ sign is still up but has reverted to ‘for let’ rather than ‘under offer’ as was the case when you last visited.”

Former Woolworths, Coalville (24 Aug 2010)

It would be interesting to discover which retailer had got as far as making an offer for the 24,612 sq ft property, and what caused the transaction not to go ahead. Meanwhile, according to the Mather Jamie website, interested parties can snap up the unit for a rent of £50,000 a year.

Interestingly, Martin was also able to reveal a little more about the Coalville Woolies’ past, telling me that he could remember a ‘Shoppers World’ being incorporated into the store in the late 1970s.

Shoppers World frontage and interior shots, from Woolworths Virtual Museum

Launched by the then still US-owned F W Woolworth & Co Ltd in September 1974, Shoppers World – seemingly with no apostrophe – was an early chain of “catalogue discount stores”, similar in concept to Argos, whose first stores had opened in July 1973. Information on the chain is surprisingly hard to come by, but piecing together details from various sources gives at least a partial picture of Shoppers World’s rise and ultimate fall.

It’s perhaps ironic that the Woolworths Virtual Museum – formerly hosted at museum.woolworths.co.uk – closed along with the rest of the Woolies website following the business’s collapse into administration in 2008, at just the time when its detailed reflections on Woolworths’ history would have been most useful.

Happily, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine ensures that a 2008 snapshot of the Woolworths Virtual Museum site still exists online, with the page about 1970s “diversification and rationalisation” offering a few (fuzzy) images of a Shoppers World store (above), and some comment on the concept’s significance at the time of its launch:

“…new for the 1970s was “Shoppers World” – a Catalogue Shop. This was a first for the UK, at a time when agents sold catalogue items from Littlewoods and Great Universal Stores in the home, normally on extended credit terms.”

“The only High Street catalogue “shopping” were stores that exchanged collectable coupons and tokens given away as a sales incentive with purchases for goods. Cigarette and petrol companies and some supermarkets gave coupons or Green Shield Stamps, which could buy goods from a catalogue. These were ordered by post or (in the case of Green Shield Stamps) could be collected in High Street redemption centres. Some years later [1973, as noted above] the Green Shield Stamp shops became Argos.”

“Shoppers World were the first to sell items from a catalogue for cash or on credit for immediate collection in store.”

Richard A Hawkins’ useful 2009 conference paper, The Influence of American Retailing Innovation in Britain: A Case Study of F. W. Woolworth & Co., 1909-1982, gives a bit more detail on store locations (p.128), noting that the chain was launched in Leeds, and initially comprised 14 shops – 13 of them converted from Woolworths – in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds. At the time, the Yorkshire Post reported that the Leeds store was in the Merrion Centre, and would be opening on 12 September 1974. As I blogged before, the Merrion Centre later played host to an eponymous Woolworths store (pictured below), which opened in the 1980s – does anyone know whether this was the same location as the former Shoppers World? 

Former Woolworths (now Home Bargains), Merrion Centre, Leeds (21 Jan 2011)

I haven’t been able to find a full list of original (or subsequent) Shoppers World store locations, but from checking out online discussions the early sites seem to have included former Woolies stores in Sparkhill (store #499) and Harborne (#575) in Birmingham, as well as Brownhills in nearby Walsall. Happily, Duncan (co-ophistorian on Flickr, who took the 1993 shot of Burton’s original Woolies that I featured previously) has a recent photo of what appears to be the old Sparkhill Woolworths / Shoppers World building, and which today houses a Barnardos charity shop.

Former Woolworths (and Shoppers World?), Sparkhill, Birmingham (7 Sep 2009). Photograph by Duncan (co-ophistorian)

A rather small and indistinct map on the Woolworths Virtual Museum site shows the extent of the Shoppers World chain in 1975, though the key is obviously wrong – the black dots are clearly Woolco (including the three North East stores at Killingworth, Washington and Thornaby), while the red ones are Shoppers World. I’ve corrected the annotation on the version reproduced at the top of this blog post.

It’s difficult to make out how many red dots there are – about 20, I reckon – but it clearly shows that the 1975 Shoppers World estate was still very much focused on the West Midlands, North West and Yorkshire, plus the single store in London, opened in September 1975, that Hawkins refers to in his paper. By the end of the decade, the chain had expanded to 52 stores – presumably including the shop in Coalville, as well as one in Harrogate that James Masterson mentions in his blog – and was apparently breaking even. Argos, by comparison, opened its 100th store, in Derby, in 1980, so Shoppers World hadn’t done too bad a job of keeping up with the growth of its competitor.

However, despite having a decent-sized estate of nearly-profitable and reportedly popular stores, the whole Shoppers World business was closed down following the 1982 split of British Woolworths from its US parent, and its purchase by Paternoster Stores. By April 1983, Hawkins notes, the last of the 43 remaining Shoppers World stores were shut, ending a dalliance with catalogue retailing that had lasted less than a decade but presumably incurred some considerable expense.

Big Red Books from 2006, 2007 and 2008

In his fascinating Doctorvee blog, Duncan Stephen – web editor at St Andrew’s University, and a former Woolies sales assistant – highlights the closure of Shoppers World as a “blunder of Woolworths”. He notes how the belated introduction of The Big Red Book, in summer 2006, was essentially a reinvention of the catalogue concept that Woolies had abandoned more than two decades earlier, but executed, this time around, in a manner that was “inept” and “doomed to fail”.

If Woolworths struggled to beat Argos when the latter had just 100 stores, competing with a 700-plus-strong Argos chain was always going to be a tall order – particularly if, as Duncan argues, stock availability from The Big Red Book was consistently poor, and resulted in consistently disappointed customers. After just a couple of years, The Big Red Book was scrapped in late 2008, but too late to save a business that by then was on the brink of administration.

No-one can really predict how things might have turned out if Woolworths had stuck with Shoppers World instead of abandoning it. Duncan Stephen remarks that “maybe if they [Woolworths] persevered they would never have had to worry about Argos.” On the other hand, it might have proved an expensive disaster, and yet another distraction from the core Woolies business. Indeed, even Argos has seen its growth stall in the last couple of years, as the big supermarkets have muscled further into its territory in both bricks and clicks. However, Argos’ most recent, and much-reduced, half-year profit – of £54.4m on sales of £1.81bn – is still a figure that Woolies could only have dreamed of in its latter days, as it barely managed to scrape a profit on sales of around £3bn.

By pulling together some of what we know about Woolworths’ Shoppers World experiment, I’m hoping that this post will prompt further discussion and insights. Can you remember the locations of Shoppers World stores close to where you were at the time? What are your memories of shopping in the stores? And what became of the sites following the chain’s closure? If you have any comments do post them below, or if – by some miracle – you even have a 1970s or 80s photo of a Shoppers World store, I’d be thrilled if you were willing to share it. As always, you can submit images for potential inclusion in the blog using the contact form.

Looking forward to your contributions!

Former Woolworths, Coopers Square, Burton upon Trent (23 Dec 2009)

Regular readers may recall a blog post from a year ago, when I reported upon my visits to the former Woolies stores at Coopers Square in Burton upon Trent (store #147, above) and Westfield Derby (#1242), both of which had closed down following the retailer’s collapse a year earlier.  

From subsequent research, it became clear that neither of these stores were their respective town’s original Woolworths, so just before Christmas I set out to track down the long-forgotten Woolies sites in Burton and Derby that I’d missed first time around. I’ll write about Derby’s rather complex Woolies history later, but for now let me focus my attention on Burton.

As I noted previously, the Woolworths in Burton’s Coopers Square shopping centre dated from 1982, taking over the unit that Sainsbury’s had formerly occupied. Before that, however, Woolies had a smaller shop on the town’s High Street, as revealed by Duncan’s great photograph of the closed-down store, apparently from 1993, and reproduced with his permission below.  

Original Woolworths, High Street, Burton, 1993. Photograph by Duncan (co-ophistorian)

The same view today (23 Dec 2010)

Looking at my photograph of the same view today (above), you can see that the rather unattractive former Woolies property has been completely transformed, though its distinctive shape and the buildings either side are instantly recognisable from the 1993 shot.

Today, the former Woolies building houses two separate pubs – The Park, and a branch of Wetherspoon’s called The Lord Burton. Indeed, this change in uses illustrates the way in which the retail focus of Burton has shifted over the years, leaving this part of the High Street very much as a destination for leisure rather than shopping.

In the nice way that Wetherspoon’s website includes a brief history of each of its pubs, the entry for The Lord Burton makes reference to its previous function as a Woolworths store:

Until the mid 1990s, the site of this Wetherspoon pub was home to a branch of Woolworths. The Burton branch opened in 1923, when Woolworths leased 154 High Street from Pearson’s the tailor. It proved so popular that the firm took over number 155 the following year.

The 1923 opening date seems spot on, but I’m not convinced by the supposed mid-1990s closure. As I’ve mentioned before, the transfer of the original Woolworths store number (147) to the Coopers Square branch would only have happened if the old store had closed at the same time as the new one opened, in 1982.

Rear of former Coopers Square Woolworths, Burton (24 Aug 2010)

This would mean, of course, that Duncan’s photo was taken a whole decade after the store shut, though the building does have the appearance in that shot of having been empty for a long time. 

I’m sure the answer isn’t far away… perhaps someone out there has memories of Burton’s original Woolworths and can help to pin down when it really did close?

UPDATE, 18 Jan 2011: Duncan tells me “I’m sure my photo is around 1993, I only started taking photos around 1987… shops came just after, from about 1990 onwards, so even if 1993 is incorrect, it would only be by a year or so…” So, with Duncan sure of his photo date and me pretty confident of the store’s closure date, it looks like Wetherspoon’s website may well be the one with its dates out of synch…

Former Woolworths (now Sports Direct), Stafford (30 Sep 2010)

The more former Woolworths stores I blog about, the more predictable it gets that I’ll be mentioning now-familiar discount names such as B&M Bargains, Home Bargains, Poundland or Sports Direct. 

Previously in Staffordshire, I’ve reported on the new occupants of Tamworth’s old Woolworths stores in the town centre (now Home Bargains) and at Ventura Park, and twice visited the old Woolies in Burton’s Cooper’s Square mall – still empty when I returned last month.  

Old Market Hall, Rugeley (30 Sep 2010)

Back in September I was able to mop up a few more old Woolworths stores in Staffordshire, kicking off with the historic market town of Rugeley. Despite spending my childhood in Tamworth, barely 15 miles away, I’d never paid a proper visit to Rugeley before. Though the dreary bus station barely leaves a good initial impression, Rugeley’s compact town centre is quite pleasant, with more interesting buildings – including the gorgeous old Market Hall – than you might expect. 

Former Woolworths (now Peacocks), Rugeley (30 Sep 2010)

Rugeley’s old Woolworths in Lower Brook Street (store #586) – pictured here in its former guise - is right at the heart of the town centre, and has been occupied by the fashion retailer Peacocks since early last year. 

Up the road, shopping in the county town of Stafford is centred around the attractive, pedestrianised Gaolgate Street, where I was pleased to see a Co-op department store still going strong. 

Co-op department store, Stafford (30 Sep 2010)

Stafford’s Co-op is owned by the Midlands Co-operative Society, which is now the second largest retail Co-op in the country (after the Co-operative Group), and has maintained a significant non-food operation at the same time as other co-ops have closed down all their department stores. 

The Stafford store’s viability is surely helped by its prominent location, a ‘Stafford Department Store’ brand that cannily emphasises its localness (seemingly a Midland’s Co-op trait, as I noted previously that the Coalville store adopts a similar approach), and the absence of any department store competition in the town. 

Though the nearby indoor mall – the Guildhall Shopping Centre – hosts more than 40 shops, I was struck by its curious lack of a major anchor store, the nearest thing being the large but oddly laid-out JJB store on the first floor. I know Debenhams is perhaps becoming too ubiquitous across the UK, but the Guildhall did feel to me like a shopping centre missing a Debenhams. 

Former Woolworths (now Sports Direct), Stafford (30 Sep 2010)

At the other end of the town, the open-air Gaolgate Place shopping precinct is very much based around a discount offer, and this is where Stafford’s former Woolworths (store #320) can be found. Sports Direct is the new occupant, though only on a short lease judging from the seemingly temporary signs stuck over the original Woolworths ones.

Market Place, Cannock (30 Sep 2010)

The nearby town of Cannock was another place that I’d never visited before. Though the part-covered Cannock Shopping Centre lacks character, I liked the busy and appealing Market Place, which had the feel of being the town’s real heart.

Former Woolworths (now Poundland), Cannock (30 Sep 2010)

Facing the Market Place, Cannock’s old Woolies (store #609) is yet another site that has been picked up by Poundland. As in Scarborough, it seems that not everyone was happy about Poundland taking over one of the town’s largest units, though the one million sales registered in the shop’s first three months would seem to tell a different story.

Rear of former Woolworths (now Poundland), Cannock (30 Sep 2010)

I previously mentioned Lichfield when the URL for Newcastle’s Monument Mall shopping centre was erroneously pointing at the site for Lichfield’s Three Spires. I’ve been to Lichfield many times before, and its very attractive city centre – packed with quaint streets and lovely buildings – always makes for an enjoyable visit.

Former Woolworths (now B&M Bargains), Lichfield (30 Sep 2010)

Unfortunately, Lichfield’s old Woolworths store (#376) is not one of the city centre’s most attractive buildings, but the arrival of B&M Bargains in 2009 at least ensured that it wasn’t empty for very long.

Rear of former Woolworths (now B&M Bargains), Lichfield (19 Mar 2010)

The more modern Three Spires shopping centre houses Lichfield’s only department store, TJ Hughes, though the city is set to gain a Debenhams if the delayed Friarsgate development ever gets off the ground. The latest design changes to the £100m scheme – reflecting the “changing market conditions” – are set to go on show to the public later this month, which perhaps bodes well for work finally getting underway before the current expiration of the planning consent in December next year.

In the coming months, any movement on mothballed retailed schemes such as Friarsgate will certainly be an important indicator of whether – and how quickly – the economy and the commercial property market is recovering after its last couple of years in the doldrums.

Former Woolworths, Coalville (24 Aug 2010)

Regular readers of Soult’s Retail View will know that I have something of a penchant for visiting lots of old Woolworths stores in a short time, usually – for better or worse – by bus.

Back in August, I took the opportunity to undertake another such jaunt, bringing in 11 former Woolies sites in Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire.

Of those, four are sites that Woolies occupied, and vacated, way before its collapse into administration. Of the other seven, it’s notable that only one showed no sign of being taken over by another retailer.

Side of former Woolworths, Tamworth (24 Aug 2010)

My journey started in Tamworth, where the old Woolworths store (#508) – now Home Bargains – has featured in this blog several times before. Given that the shop’s frontage was obscured, inevitably, by tatty market stalls, I thought I’d vary things a little by taking a shot of the store from the side.

Looking down College Lane towards George Street, the image shows the corner site where Tamworth’s Woolies began, with the company acquiring the premises of William Facey’s furniture store in 1933. It was only in 1968-70 that the property took the form that we see today, the original store redeveloped along with adjoining properties that Woolworths had acquired.

Former Woolworths, Atherstone (24 Aug 2010)

Next stop was the attractive Warwickshire market town of Atherstone, where the Woolworths store in Long Street closed down many years before the chain’s eventual collapse. The store’s number in the Woolies pecking order (#661) suggests that it opened in 1936, and the design certainly fits with that period. Now occupied by Atherstone Carpets, the building is still completely recognisable as an old Woolies, even if the later addition of a pitched roof has rather unbalanced its architectural quality. Note the building’s similarity, for example, to that of the contemporaneous Alfreton store (#684).

Former Woolworths (now TJ Hughes), Nuneaton (24 Aug 2010)

A few miles down the road, the 24,000 sq ft former Woolies site in Nuneaton (#227) – facing Queens Road but also attached to the Ropewalk Shopping Centre – was in the process of being refurbished by TJ Hughes, ahead of its opening in October.

Original Woolworths (now Superdrug), Nuneaton (24 Aug 2010)

However, the town’s original Woolworths building is a little further down the street, facing the Market Square, and is now occupied by Superdrug. In fact, Nuneaton’s Woolies occupied that site for almost forty years, opening on 31 July 1926 before relocating to the new site on 5 June 1964. Incidentally, the imposing property with the gable next door – currently housing Eastex and Dash – also has some historical significance retail-wise, as the town’s original Boots store.

Former Woolworths (now B&M Bargains) Hinckley (24 Aug 2010)

No jaunt in search of old Woolies is complete without a store that has been taken over by B&M Bargains, and the Leicestershire town of Hinckley was able to oblige in this case. As is usual with the former Woolworths sites that B&M Bargains has taken over, the existing shopfront of the Castle Street store – in the distinctive 1960s Woolies style – has been retained. Though a Woolworths store had occupied that site since 1934 (store #542), the building itself has obviously undergone significant redevelopment over the years.

Former Woolworths, Haymarket, Leicester (24 Aug 2010)

By the time Woolworths collapsed, the chain had already exited Leicester city centre, having sold their Humberstone Gate / Haymarket site (#1141) – opened in 1986 – in 2006. That property, if I’ve identified it correctly, is now occupied in part by Currys and Peacocks.

Original Woolworths location (now Bhs), Leicester (24 Aug 2010)

However, the original Woolworths in Leicester city centre was around the corner in Gallowtree Gate. That store (#49) opened in June 1915, was redeveloped in 1965, and was sold to Bhs in the early 1980s.

Old postcard showing the same store prior to redevelopment

The store in that location has some personal significance, in that my maternal grandmother, Emmie Hunter (née Emmie Harley), worked there for six years from 1933 (aged 18) to 1939, when the store would have looked much as it does in the old postcard above. I understand that she worked as a shop assistant, in various departments, but particularly enjoyed working in the equivalent of today’s entertainment section – the sheet music counter.

Former Woolworths, Coalville (24 Aug 2010)

A few miles from Leicester, Coalville’s Woolies in Belvoir Road (#474) was still empty (and as far as I’m aware remains so), though a sign claimed that the premises were ‘under offer’. Purportedly covering over 24,000 sq ft, the property is evidently much larger than it appears from the frontage, and it will be interesting to see who the new occupant is, if and when they ever arrive. With the nearby Belvoir Shopping Centre apparently set for redevelopment^{[broken link removed]}, it’s always possible that the new tenant could be a relocation from there.

Former Woolworths (now Costa), Ashby-de-la-Zouch (24 Aug 2010)

A few miles away, Ashby-de-la-Zouch is quite like Atherstone in being a highly appealing market town where most of its shops are strung out along one long street. Unlike Atherstone, however, Ashby managed to hang on to its Woolies (#624) – opened in what looks like an existing building, in Market Street, in 1935 – until the end.

As old Woolworths premises go, Ashby’s is quite unusual in being taken over not by another retailer but by Costa, the coffee shop chain, which opened there earlier this year. Covering just 2,000 sq ft, however, the small size of the ground floor sales area rather limits the options.

Former Woolworths (now Alworths), Swadlincote (24 Aug 2010)

Over the border into Derbyshire, Swadlincote offered a sense of déjà vu with its prominent ‘Tamworth Co-op’ branded store. Further along the High Street, however, the old Woolies (#567) was being fitted out ready for Alworths to open up on 8 September. Rather like the store in Alfreton, the property is a slightly incongruous amalgamation of two separate buildings, the original purpose-built Woolies evidently having been extended at some point into the shop next door.

Former Woolworths (now Alworths), Swadlincote (24 Aug 2010)

As the shot above shows, work was well progressed, with all the shelving in place and me captured for posterity on the already-installed CCTV, but without any Alworths signage as yet. Though it was nearly 6pm by this time, a workman was still on site and told me that stocking and staff training was due to start on 25 August, the day after my visit. 

Swadlincote was intended to my last Woolies stop ahead of catching the train back from Burton upon Trent to Tamworth, having already photographed Burton’s Woolies in Coopers Square the last time I embarked upon a tour of the Midlands.

Rear of former Woolworths, Burton (24 Aug 2010)

As it happens, however, the bus from Swadlincote dropped me off outside the service entrance of the old Burton Woolworths (#147), where I was fascinated to spot a very old ‘Woolworth’ sign – in the singular, rather than the more usual plural. Officially, the retailer referred to itself as Woolworth (or F W Woolworth) for much of its lifetime, with the chain only being branded as Woolworths (in the plural) from the mid 1980s onwards. This means that the sign remaining at Burton probably dates from when the store first opened on that site, in 1982, taking over a unit that had previously been Sainsbury’s.

Just like the archaic WHSmith logo that I happened upon in Redcar, it’s an interesting example of a retailer rebranding but forgetting – or just not bothering – to update the logo ‘round the back’. However, it’s also the kind of unexpected retail detail that makes visits like this one rather fun.

Shot from 1998 'Woolies Winter Wonderland' TV ad

 …That was the theme of Woolworths’ 1998 Christmas TV advertisement [broken link removed], in the heady, Tellytubby days when, as the ad reminds us, everyone wanted a Talking Po.  

This festive season, the incessant snow and ice has certainly made it a Winter Wonderland in the various town centres that I visited. However, 2009 has, of course, been the first Christmas without Woolies on the high street, meaning that shoppers have had to look elsewhere for their Barbies, PlayStations, and whatever the current equivalent to a Talking Po is.  

Trudging through the wintry conditions, I did manage to snap a few more ex-Woolies stores during the last fortnight. Interestingly, unlike my last set of pictures, where most of the former Woolworths sites that I visited had been taken over by other retailers, many of the latest batch remain vacant.

Former Big W (now M&S), Tamworth (24 Dec 2009)

The former Woolies up first is a bit of a cheat, in that it’s not one of the 807 stores that closed down following Woolworths’ collapse into administration last year, but is one that had already shut – and been taken over – shortly prior to that.  

The former out-of-town Big W at Tamworth’s Ventura Park is certainly one of the more shortlived Woolies stores (having opened, I think, in summer 2001), as well as one of the larger stores to open in recent years (90,000 sq ft). The shop lasted only until late 2004 in its original form, when it was split into two: Woolies kept the left-hand half (rebranding it from Big W to Woolworths), while the right-hand half was subsequently taken over by Marks & Spencer, which opened its own store there in November 2005.  

However, even the shrunken Woolies failed to last very long. In April 2008, Woolworths closed its store at Ventura Park all together, M&S having made an offer to take over the remainder of the building. The revamped and extended Marks & Spencer opened in December 2008, and certainly seemed to be pretty busy when I visited over Christmas. Given what happened to the Woolworths chain just a few months after the closure of the Ventura Park store, it’s probably no bad thing for Tamworth that M&S had taken over the site already. (Tamworth’s separate town centre store – closed on 2 January 2009, and now Home Bargains – has already been featured in a previous blog post.)

Former Woolworths, Burton upon Trent (23 Dec 2009)

Over in nearby Burton upon Trent, in contrast, the former Woolies in the Coopers Square shopping centre is yet to find a new occupant. However, it’s hard to imagine the unit being empty for too long, given that the centre has several strong anchors (Bhs, M&S, Primark, New Look), a modern and appealing environment, and very few other empty shops.

Former Woolworths (now TJ Hughes), Westfield, Derby (23 Dec 2009)

Down the road in Derby, the large former Woolworths in the Westfield shopping centre (the extended and renamed former Eagle Centre) has been taken over by TJ Hughes, and has reportedly been trading well since its opening in September. Woolworths had occupied the site back in the Eagle Centre days, but this photograph shows the extent of the changes made to the store’s London Road frontage as part of the Westfield revamp.

Former Woolworths, Alfreton (23 Dec 2009)

Still in Derbyshire, the old Woolies in Alfreton High Street is another of those that remains vacant. It’s quite an interesting store in that it’s a rather awkward amalgamation of a traditional-looking Woolworths building (the portion on the right) with part of the adjacent block to the left. Presumably at some point Woolies must have expanded from its original building into the premises next door?

As you know, I’m generally sceptical about the merits of dividing up large former Woolworths units; in Alfreton, however, I can’t help thinking that it would really enhance the streetscape to split this property back into two separate shops – or at least to install a new shopfront that is more sympathetic to the contrasting heights and styles of the two buildings. 

Former Woolworths (now Amber Value), Ripley (23 Dec 2009)

Down the road in Church Street in Ripley, Derbyshire, the inclusion of the property above in this blog is again something of a cheat, given that it has not been a Woolworths store for many years. There’s a personal story behind this store though, in that my grandparents (and much of my family) lived in Ripley during my childhood, and I can well remember visiting Ripley’s Woolies with my gran and parents.

When the store shut (in January 1990, I believe), I can still recall my gran grumbling about the then state of Ripley’s town centre, recognising the symbolic importance – and the humiliation, almost – of the town losing its Woolworths. Twenty years on, however, you might argue that Ripley has had the last laugh. When Woolworths closed, the long-established Amber Value store – then occupying the narrow, two-bay property that you see in the middle of the picture above – extended into the much larger Woolworths premises next door (the left-hand building in the photo), increasing its floor area several times over as a result.

Since then, Amber Value has continued to trade successfully from the site, offering an eclectic but highly useful range of household items, such as homewares, gardening products, stationery and toiletries. Today, the store is rightly valued by local people as a place to buy items that are not readily available elsewhere in the town centre – everything, you might argue, that Woolworths used to be.

Former Woolworths (now Lighthouse charity shop), Heanor (23 Dec 2009)

Back to the more recent Woolies closures, and in nearby Heanor the old Woolworths store is occupied by a Lighthouse charity shop, though only on a short-term basis judging by the continued presence of a ‘To Let’ sign. I wasn’t familiar with this enterprise prior to my visit, but I understand that Lighthouse is a growing chain of charity shops across Derbyshire operated by Valley CIDS, a Christian charity “that is committed to building and strengthening community in and around Derbyshire”, and which works “to support children and families through outreach work in schools and the wider community”.

As has happened in Burnley – where the YMCA has turned the 16,000 sqft former Woolworths into the largest charity superstore in the country – there are inevitably questions about how effective a charity shop can be in enhancing the fortunes of a town centre, particularly in the aftermath of an important Woolworths store being lost. As a shorter-term measure, however, using such units to promote beneficial charity work is surely preferable to the properties lying empty.

Former Woolworths, Dumfries (29 Dec 2009)

The two remaining former Woolies featured here are indeed both stores that have yet to find a new occupant. The first, in Dumfries, was reported back in September as being ‘under offer’, though there was no evidence of anything happening – and a ‘To Let’ sign still in place – when I visited last week.

Former Woolworths, Dumfries (29 Dec 2009)

Fittingly, given the Winter Wonderland theme with which we started, the final Woolies for now is the one in Chester-le-Street, photographed – during a snow shower – just yesterday. Unfortunately for Chester-le-Street town centre, the still vacant Woolworths premises in Front Street are directly opposite those of the former Co-op department store, which closed down in 2007 and is only partly reoccupied (by Peacocks, since April 2009).

Former Woolworths, Chester-le-Street (2 Jan 2010)

Throughout these changes, it’s refreshing to see Chester-le-Street Heritage Group doing its bit to both promote and document the town’s retail history, including setting up a display of old photographs of the Woolworths store during its final days. The former Woolworths store is certainly an attractive building in a very central location within Chester-le-Street, so I’d be surprised if the Heritage Group didn’t have some good news to report upon and document during 2010.