High Street Stores Of Times Gone By

As the future of Austin Reed and British Home Stores become uncertain, let’s take a look at other well-known High Streets stores that have disappear

09:15 03 May 2016

 

Gone are the days when shoppers are buying a record at Woolworths, shoes from Freeman, and clothing from C&A as these stores, which once dominated the High Street have disappeared. Ever wonder what happened to these shops?

 

Woolworths

 

The US-funded store, which opened its door to the Brits in 1909 closed down all its 807 branches in 2009 due to cutthroat competition leading to the lost of 30,000 jobs. Neil Wrigley, professor of human geography at Southampton University, said that Woolworth’s disappearance was mainly due to the competition from online retailers and movement towards more services, such as coffee shops.

 

Dixons

 

Dixons is an electrical chain founded in 1937 and closed in 2006. Several of its High Street branches were later rebranded Currys.digital. It remained as an online brand but later this also came under Currys.

 

C&A

 

C&A was a chain of clothing stores with 109 shops. In 2000, it announced its withdrawal from the UK due to the increasing competition from other mid-market clothing retailers including Next and Gap. Its last two stores in west London and Bradford closed in May 2001. Wrigley said that its fall was due to evolving demands in fashion. "Some shops lost their consumer demand. People didn't want clothes that their mothers and fathers would've wanted. It's similar to what appears to be happening at BHS now." 

 

Athena

 

Athena started selling art prints, cards and stationery in 1976. The number of its stores grew to 20 by 1979 and 165 by the mid 1990s. However, it was hit hard by the internet and all the stores are closed by 2014. Simon Coates, one of Athena's directors, said: "Athena really struck a chord when it started. It became part of many people's Saturday to buy sweets from Woolworths, a CD from HMV and a poster from Athena, but other retailers started stocking stuff like we sold, stuff they'd never have sold before. The supermarkets started selling greetings cards and then there was the challenge from the internet. Anyone could print their own art online."

 

Freeman, Hardy and Willis

 

The shoe manufacturer begun in Leicester in the 1870s and became a familiar brand in hundreds of High Streets. In mid-1990s, it ceased trading and became a part of the British Shoe Corporation.

 

Comet

 

Founded as a business charging radio batteries in 1993, Comet quickly grew and opened 236 stores before it went into administration in November 2012.

 

Dewhurst

 

A chain of butcher shops with over 1,400 outlets before it went into administration in 2006 due to rapidly declining sales because of fierce competition. Phil Lyon, a gastronomy lecturer at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, said: "The supermarkets started packaging meat in plastic containers, so it became commodified, rather than people wanting to request specific cuts or a certain weight of minced beef or steak. There was also a bit of a move away from red meat to white meat, which didn't help."

 

Fine Fare

 

The supermarket was established in the 1950s and expanded until 1970s. Its fall was blamed to a period when out-of-town shopping became popular in the 1960s. "We went through a period of out-of-town shopping increasing in the 1960s and later," Wrigley says. "Fine Fare would have been one of the companies that suffered as the big supermarkets like Sainsbury's and Tesco expanded. But that's been reversing in recent years, with the High Street taking back trade from the out-of-town stores."

 

The company was sold the owner of Gateway in the 1980s and the stores were rebranded.