Robbs was a mid-size department store in Hexham, latterly owned by Beales. It was established in 1818 by William Robb a lace trader from Fife and subsequently managed for the next 169 years in an unbroken father to son line for six generations. The store was regularly expanded and developed over the years and at one time occupied 30% of the retail floorspace of Hexham. It has had a long and extravagant history boasting the first electric lights in the town, its own funeral directors service, an upholstery service, haberdashery and dressmaking.
At its peak, the store traded on 5 floors with 80,000 square feet of floor space including a food hall. Over 300 staff were employed in the store in the early 1980s. The store opened a second branch in Hexham in 1989. Robbs at Tynedale Park featured a garden centre, homewares and furnishings. It was later rebranded as Tynedale Park, before being sold to Tesco and closing in 2005.[1]
The business was sold to the Joplings group in October 1987, and a few years later was acquired by Merchant Retail and Owen Owen, before it was bought by the newly formed Vergo Retail in 2007.[2]
On 7 May 2010 Vergo was placed into administration, with MCR appointed as the administrators. On 11 May 2010 it was announced that there would be ten store closures, including Robbs, within the next four weeks unless a buyer was found.[3] By 21 May 2010 Beales had lodged a formal notice of interest in Robbs of Hexham, whilst the administrators asked the Buccleuch Group, owners of the building, and Northumberland County Council to waive rent and rates for ten weeks, to allow the business to be continued to be marketed as a going concern.[4] On 4 June 2010 Robbs was sold to Beales for £250,000, saving 140 jobs. Beales aimed to return the store to profitability.[5] In 2011 the store was rebranded under the Beales fascia, and it closed in February 2020.
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.
Wm Morrison Supermarkets, trading as Morrisons, is the fourth largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, and is headquartered in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England.
Hexham is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, on the south bank of the River Tyne, formed by the confluence of the North Tyne and the South Tyne at Warden nearby, and close to Hadrian's Wall. Hexham was the administrative centre for the Tynedale district from 1974 to 2009. In 2011, it had a population of 13,097.
British Home Stores, commonly abbreviated to BHS and latterly legally styled BHS Ltd, was a British department store chain, primarily selling clothing and household items. In its later years, the company began to expand into furniture, electronics, entertainment, convenience groceries and fragrance and beauty products.
Sunrise Records and Entertainment, trading as HMV, is a British music and entertainment retailer, currently operating exclusively in the United Kingdom.
Game Retail Limited is a British video game retailer, owned by Frasers Group since June 2019.
Allders was an independent department store operating in the United Kingdom.
Joplings was a department store, located in Sunderland, England, which was part of the former Vergo Retail Ltd. group of department stores.
MFI Group Limited was a British furniture retailer, operating under the MFI brand. The company was one of the largest suppliers of kitchens and bedroom furniture in the United Kingdom, and operated mainly in retail parks in out of town locations. Anecdotally, it was said at one stage that one in three Sunday lunches in the United Kingdom were cooked in a kitchen from MFI, and 60% of British children were conceived in a bedroom from MFI.
Our Price was a chain of record stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland from 1971 until 2004.
Lewis's was a chain of British department stores that operated from 1856 to 2010. The owners of Lewis's have gone into administration many times over the years, including 1991. The first store, which opened in Liverpool city centre, became the flagship of the chain of stores operating under the Lewis's name. Several stores in the chain were bought in 1991 by the company Owen Owen and continued to operate under the Lewis's brand name for several years, but after the closure of the Manchester store in 2001, only the original Liverpool store continued to trade under the Lewis's name. This store was sold in 2007 to the Vergo Retail Ltd and closed in 2010.
Mothercare plc is a British retailer which specialises in products for expectant mothers and in general merchandise for children up to eight years of age. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index.
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.
T. J. Hughes, registered and styled as TJ Hughes, is a British discount department store brand which first emerged in Liverpool in 1912
Beales is an English department store chain, which currently operates 3 branches, in Peterborough, Poole and Southport. The former flagship store, Beales in Bournemouth, was established as The Fancy Fair by John Elmes Beale in 1881 and was the biggest department store in Dorset. The chain expanded through acquiring other department stores and continued to run two stores branded as Palmers in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft until its closure.
Borders (UK) Ltd., also known as Borders & Books etc., was established as a Borders Group subsidiary in 1998, and in 2007 became independent of the US parent company. At its peak after separation from the US parent, it traded from its 41 Borders and 28 BOOKS etc. shops with over one million square feet of retail space, taking around 8% of the retail bookselling market. In 2008 and 2009 the store numbers were reduced before the collapse of the chain. They also operated one single branch in Ireland, but closed this early in 2009. On 26 November 2009 it was announced that Borders (UK) had gone into administration. All stores closed on 24 December 2009.
Vergo Retail Ltd was a department store business based in Liverpool, England, founded in 2007. Vergo Retail ran 20 shops, consisting of nine department stores, including Lewis's of Liverpool, Robbs of Hexham, Joplings of Sunderland and Derrys of Plymouth and four others in Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk; four Homemaker stores in Devon, four home and fashion stores in Essex and Suffolk; two home stores in Essex; and a jewellery store in Colchester. The company entered administration in 2010.
Sears plc was a large British-based conglomerate. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It was acquired by Philip Green in 1999.
The Mall Maidstone is a covered shopping centre in Maidstone, the county town of Kent. The centre has 535,000 square feet (49,700 m2) of floor space, ranking it as the joint 60th largest shopping centre in the UK according to a 2008 survey by Retail Week.
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