Back to the future with London’s Lost Department Stores

Our substantial streets are even now littered with the stays of former office merchants including the shells of after stunning stores of Debenhams, House of Fraser and BHS that have been just lately joined by various John Lewis & Associates properties.

Amid the carnage right now it is amazing to imagine that London (and its suburbs) alone supported in excess of 100 division stores in the 1900s. But it’s genuine and proof of this amazing period of time is chronicled in the a short while ago revealed e book ‘London’s Lost Department Stores’ from Protected Haven Textbooks.

It gives an uncomplicated-reading snapshot of an array of these now sadly departed grand suppliers which include several familiar names to me: Dickens & Jones, Waring & Gillow, Barkers, Large Biba, Whiteleys and Allders. There’s also quite a few that had prolonged ceased trading right before I moved down to the capital like Stagg & Mantle, Pratts, Gorringes and the terrifically named Bodgers.

The anecdote-pushed accounts of these numerous shops incredibly significantly offers a social background of searching from the Victorian time period onwards. It is improved by chapters on connected themes this kind of as revolutionary ladies in the sector and department outlets for the duration of war.

As properly as getting published in an available style by author Tessa Boase the e book is even more brought to existence by the great collection of shots that include tremendously to the publication. The image-prosperous structure with personal section keep profiles makes certain this is a ebook that can be easily dipped into whenever the reader fancies a little bit of nostalgia and desires to be be transported to a interval when retail truly was offering an extraordinary sum of theatre to consumers.

We now dwell in a period of time when vendors are focusing at any time much more on injecting bigger ordeals into their actual physical outlets and this guide will not only get them back in time but it might also level them in the direction in which they need to go with their businesses in the future.

London’s Misplaced Department Outlets is obtainable from Harmless Haven Guides priced £16.99.

Glynn Davis, editor, Retail Insider