Brighton is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the city of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located 47 mi (76 km) south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods. The ancient settlement of "Brighthelmstone" was documented in the Domesday Book (1086). The town's importance grew in the Middle Ages as the Old Town developed, but it languished in the early modern period, affected by foreign attacks, storms, a suffering economy and a declining population. Brighton began to attract more visitors following improved road transport to London and becoming a boarding point for boats travelling to France. The town also developed in popularity as a health resort for sea bathing as a purported cure for illnesses.
Borders Group, Inc. was an American multinational book and music retailer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. In its final year, the company employed about 19,500 people throughout the U.S., primarily in its Borders and Waldenbooks stores.
WH Smith PLC, trading as WHSmith, is a British retailer, with headquarters in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, entertainment products and confectionery.
Wm Morrison Supermarkets Limited, trading as Morrisons, is the fifth largest supermarket chain in the United Kingdom. As of 2021, the company had 497 supermarkets across England, Wales and Scotland, and one in Gibraltar. The company is headquartered in Bradford, England.
Debenhams plc was a British department store chain operating in the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Republic of Ireland, and is still operating as a franchise in seven Middle East countries. It was founded in 1778 as a single store in London and grew to 178 locations across those countries, also owning the Danish department store chain Magasin du Nord. In its final years, its headquarters were within the premises of its flagship store in Oxford Street, London. The range of goods sold included middle-to-high-end clothing, beauty, household items, and furniture.
Toys "R" Us is an American toy, clothing, and baby product retailer owned by Tru Kids and various others. The company was founded in 1957; its first store was built in April 1948, with its headquarters located in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area.
Hamleys is a British multinational toy retailer, owned by Reliance Retail. Listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest toy store, it was founded by William Hamley as "Noah's Ark" in High Holborn, London, in 1760. It moved to its current site on Regent Street in London's West End in 1881. This flagship store is set over seven floors, with more than 50,000 lines of toys on sale. It receives around five million visitors each year.
Big Lots Stores, Inc. is an American discount retail chain headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, United States.
Woolworth was a listed British company that owned the High Street retail chain Woolworths. It also owned other companies such as the entertainment distributor Entertainment UK, and book and resource distributor Bertram Books.
Argos Limited is a British catalogue retailer operating in the United Kingdom and formerly in the Republic of Ireland, acquired by Sainsbury's supermarket chain in 2016. It was established in November 1972 and is named after the Greek city of Argos. The company trades both through physical shops and online, with 29 million yearly shop customers, and nearly a billion online visitors per annum. It has also franchised overseas to countries such as China.
Owen Owen was a Liverpool-based operator of department stores in the United Kingdom and Canada. Beginning with a drapery shop in Liverpool, a chain of department stores was built up, often by taking over rival retailers. The company remained under Owen / Norman family control until the 1980s, and the brand ceased to be used in 2007.
Fine Fare was a chain of supermarkets which operated in the United Kingdom from 1951 until 1988. Their Yellow Pack budget own-label range, introduced in 1980, was the first own brand basic ranges to be introduced in the UK and in 1983 it was the first supermarket to sell organic food. Fine Fare and its subsidiaries were rebranded to Gateway Foodmarkets in the late 1980s.
Churchill Square is the principal shopping centre in the centre of Brighton and Hove, a city on the south coast of England. It is at the eastern end of Western Road, near the Clock Tower.
Modelzone is a scale model brand owned by British retailer WHSmith, of scale models and related products are sold in WHSmith stores and online.
The Entertainer (Amersham) Ltd. is the UK's largest independent toy retailer, which operates more than 170 stores. The company was founded by the husband and wife team Catherine and Gary Grant in 1981, when Gary purchased a local toy shop in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England.
The Astoria Theatre was a former cinema in Brighton, part of the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. Built in 1933 in the Art Deco style for a local entertainment magnate who opened one of Brighton's first cinemas many years earlier, it was the first and most important expansion of the Astoria brand outside London. It initially struggled against the town's other "super-cinemas", but enjoyed a period of success in the 1950s and 1960s before rapid decline set in, culminating in its closure in 1977.
Hanningtons was a department store located in the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. Prominently situated in a central position in Brighton, it had an unbroken history of trading for nearly 200 years until its closure in 2001. It was the city's oldest, largest and most diverse department store: its 70 departments offered clothes and household goods of all types, and services ranging from funeral arrangement to carpet-cleaning. "Famous" and "prestigious", it was known locally as the "Harrods of Brighton". It remained in family ownership until the 1960s, and subsequent owners ran the business according to the principles of the Hannington family.
Bargain Buys is a British chain of discount stores operating across the United Kingdom, a subsidiary of Poundstretcher. The chain was launched in 2013 by Chris Edwards Sr. and Chris Edwards Jr., to be a subsidiary of the single-price chain they founded, Poundworld. In 2015, TPG Capital purchased a majority stake in Poundworld and Bargain Buys. TPG Capital went into administration in 2018, with all Poundworld and Bargain Buys stores closed.
ToyZone was a British high-street chain of stores, predominantly selling toys and novelty items. It was best known for being one of the first online toy retailers, launching their online store in 1998. The company's online effort were backed by TV presenter Jonathan Ross, Tom Hunter and Matthew Freud.
