Proud Scouser, with a dabbling of Welsh and Irish.
bore yourself silly at my Flickr page...anorak central!
Proud Scouser, with a dabbling of Welsh and Irish.
bore yourself silly at my Flickr page...anorak central!
Store closes before flagship move
One of the best-known stores in Liverpool city centre is closing its doors for the final time.
The new flagship store opens on Thursday
John Lewis, formerly known as George Henry Lee, is moving to a new flagship store on South John Street as part of the Liverpool One development.
It means the store on Basnett Street, where the company has traded for 60 years, will close on Monday.
The first phase of the £1bn Liverpool One retail development is opening on Thursday morning.
An army of staff will be involved in moving stock and other items to the new store on Tuesday and Wednesday before the opening.
Margaret Jacques, managing director of John Lewis in Liverpool, said the move was being planned like a "military operation".
The new John Lewis store is the biggest outside London and is one of the flagship developments of Liverpool One.
The development features shops, bars and hotels and centres on a 42-acre site near the city's Paradise Street.
Its official grand opening, when all of the units will be open, is taking place in September.
Source: BBC NEWS | Merseyside
i used to love that going in that building
There's still an entrance that has retained the George Henry Lee name over the doors. It's visible down the side-street, off Parker street.
^ I did see staff having a break outside that entrance. That's one of the back-streets of Liverpool, that few people visit.
John Lewis's closes its doors at historic site
May 27 2008 by Alan Weston, Liverpool Daily Post
Curtain down on shopping era
THE curtain came down on more than 150 years of shopping history yesterday, when one of Liverpool’s best-loved stores closed its doors for the last time.
Hundreds of serving and former staff gathered at John Lewis’s at the close of business yesterday to mark the end of an era for the Basnett Street department store.
On Thursday, John Lewis’s new 260,000ft complex will open for business as one of the anchor stores at the new Liverpool One development.
It is all a far cry from the department store’s origins as a bonnet shop, employing 13 people when it opened in 1853.
And yesterday was an opportunity for staff members to gather around the famous grand staircase and share their memories of the iconic Liverpool store, known to generations of families as the upmarket George Henry Lee’s.
The managing director, Margaret Jacques, read out a moving poem about the history of the building, which had many of those present in tears.
Among those in attendance for the closing ceremony yesterday were current staff members Maria Hewitt, Meryl Hartley and Lynn Balshaw, who between them have more than 100 years’ service.
All three will be transferring to the new store when it opens later this week. Lynn, 60, who started work as a junior clerk at the store in 1966, said: “It’s been very emotional and we’ve all had a good cry.
“It’s changed an awful lot in the time I’ve been here, and it’s a lot more informal. When I started, it was olde worlde, the restaurant was silver service and there was a hairdressing salon.
“Now it’s a lot more informal and all the staff are known by their first names.” Colleague Maria Hewitt, a relative newcomer with 28 years’ experience, said: “It’s just like one big family. Today was my day off, but I couldn’t not come for the closing of the doors because I would have regretted it for the rest of my life.
“But we’re all looking forward to doing our best when we get to the new building as well.”
Meryl Hartley, who joined the firm straight from school at the age of 16 and has been at the store for 32 years, said: “The managing director gave the most wonderful speech from the bottom of her heart, and there were quite a lot of tears.”
The former and serving staff members were joined yesterday by those who are stocking the new branch, along with many who work in John Lewis’s warehouse in Speke.
Over the next few days, a military-style operation will see more than £1m worth of stock transferred to the new store. It will be one of John Lewis’s largest branches outside London, and is 40% larger than the Basnett Street store it replaces.
The current John Lewis site will be temporarily taken over by Marks & Spencer while it refurbishes its own Church Street store, before Rapid Hardware moves in permanently in 2011.
alanweston
It would be nice if M&S when doing their revamp were to incorporate small shop fronts along the sides of their building in Basnett Street and Tarleton Street.
They could use them as their own outlets, such as a wine shop or flower shop, cooked meats etc, selling the same goods that they currently sell inside.
It would still be their own brands, but wouldn’t it make those two streets more pleasant to shop in, instead of the two blank canyons they resemble at the moment!
Comments anyone?
What a smashing idea Samp. It would, as you say, make those streets more interesting and it would be great to be able to pop into a smaller shop to purchase something like flowers or wine - without having to tackle the queues at the checkouts in the big store.
I loved the old building !, even if I did get lost nearly every time I went in !, I have been in the new store and have to say that it has lost all its character !, it will always be George Henry Lee to me !
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