Unpacking Middlesbrough’s Woolies history

Graham Soult

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

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11 Responses

  1. Graham Soult says:

    That’s a great find Ali – many thanks!

    So it looks like the white Radio Cleveland building was the original Middlesbrough Woolies after all!

  2. Ali Brown says:

    Following up on your question of whether or not you’d correctly identified the original Middlesbrough Woolies, I’ve acquired a 1913 postcard showing that part of Linthorpe Road with Woolworth’s on the far left.

    http://www.theoldhometown.com/cleveland/picture/number1239.asp

  3. Ali Brown says:

    Better late than never, here’s a photo of the former Woolies store in Linthorpe village, Middlesbrough.

    http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f373/simplevisions/P8222201.jpg

    It bacame a branch of TSB after it was Woolies but I can’t remember if was occupied by anyone else before Boots moved in from a few doors up Linthorpe Road.

  4. Graham Soult says:

    Thanks for your speedy reply, Ali! Really interesting again. I’d certainly be interested in seeing a photo of the former Linthorpe village Woolworths!

  5. Ali Brown says:

    I’m not sure you’ve found the right building. My Mum used to work upstairs in there when it was a Tax Office. It later became the home of Radio Cleveland. It’s hard to know for sure as the Sony Centre didn’t exist in the 1950s and I would have said that “moving up” Linthorpe Road would mean that the original Woolies was further “down” Linthorpe Road toward the station.

    I’ll ask my Mum’s cousin where the original was – she’s much older than me!

    You’ve not mentioned the Woolies in Linthorpe village much further up Linthorpe Road. I can’t give you dates but I used to do my Grandma’s shopping and call in there and the Co-op back in the 1960’s. It closed before the one in the town centre and became a branch of the TSB and is now a Boots chemists.

    Let me know if you’d like a photo of how it is now.

    Cheers
    Ali

  1. January 4, 2010

    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ali Brown, Graham Soult. Graham Soult said: [Retail blog] Unpacking Middlesbrough's Woolies history – http://bit.ly/5uzV51 #li […]

  2. June 2, 2010

    […] 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 […]

  3. November 18, 2010

    […] Vernon Road frontage is quintessential postwar Woolies, with more than a passing resemblance to the contemporaneous Linthorpe Road store in Middlesbrough. Vernon St frontage, former Woolworths, Scarborough (16 Aug […]

  4. February 19, 2012

    […] than they needed. The Middlesbrough store was among those that were closed down, with – as I noted previously – the building subsequently subdivided into smaller shop […]

  5. February 19, 2012

    […] After making my first visit to Middlesbrough’s most recent former Woolworths – the site of today’s Discount UK – back in September 2009, Soult’s Retail View readers Ali Brown and Gareth Hill helped to reveal that the town had, in fact, hosted four previous Woolies stores at different times. […]

  6. February 21, 2012

    […] have Soult’s Retail View reader Ali Brown to thank for alerting me to a third Linthorpe Road Woolworths store, this time outside the town centre in Linthorpe Village (above). The store number of 936 points to […]

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