The Times - UK (2022-04-08)

6 Friday April 8 2022 | the times

Burning

issue

With arguments

still intense about

the proposed

Holocaust memorial

in Westminster,

the arrival of yet

another national

memorial, this time

for Covid victims,

seems certain to

provoke mixed

views.

The artist David

Best’s Sanctuary, a

“spiritual space for

communities to

mark the losses of

the last two years”,

will open in

Bedworth,

Warwickshire, on

May 21. Its saving

grace, in some eyes,

may be that just one

week later it will

be burnt, providing

what organisers

claim will be “a

powerful symbol

of catharsis and

rebirth for the

whole community”.

Hmm. I’m not

sure I will get much

Covid “catharsis”

until I read that the

scammers who

made billions from

selling the NHS

shoddy equipment,

the fraudsters who

diddled the furlough

scheme and the

politicians and

civil servants who

imposed draconian

isolation rules while

merrily partying

in Whitehall have

all been named,

shamed and, where

appropriate, brought

to justice. Burning

an artwork doesn’t

quite do the job.

T

he invitation to “shop

till you drop” was the

siren call of Britain’s

great department

stores for a century.

Now, though, it’s more

a case of “shop till

they flop”. One by one,

those famous high street cornerstones

— Debenhams, House of Fraser,

Beales, John Lewis — have collapsed

or cut their losses by closing dozens

of stores. Whether the biggest nail in

their coffin was out-of-town malls,

punitive business rates, the

rampaging march of online retailers

or the economic devastation of the

pandemic is still being debated, but

the reality is that, at the last count,

237 department stores lie vacant

across the country.

What should become of them?

Departing Stores, a superbly

researched new report written by

Harriet Lloyd and published by the

heritage campaigners at Save, argues

that demolition should be the last

resort — attractive though that often

seems to developers. First, demolishing

a big, solidly constructed building and

replacing it with a new one is a huge

waste of embodied carbon, at a time

when every level of government is

supposedly committed to cutting

carbon emissions. Second, when

people use their imaginations, stores

can be repurposed in ways that help

the renewal of town centres.

And third, these mighty emporia

— which often started as huge leaps

of faith by far-sighted local drapers

in the Victorian era — aren’t called

“cathedrals of commerce” for no

reason. Architecturally, many are

majestic. You just have to lift your eyes

above ground level to find columns

and towers, sculptures and decorations

that evoke Renaissance palaces or

Elizabethan theatres, art deco New

York or art nouveau Paris. Yes, it’s all

pastiche — but pastiche done with

such a swagger of fine craftsmanship

that it should raise the spirits of all

who pass by.

Lloyd’s report is full of such

examples. Bolton’s former Beales has

a breathtaking mock-Tudor frontage,

using timber beams from demolished

ancient buildings elsewhere in the

town. Brighton’s magnificent Palmeira

Stores, now rescued as a Tesco

Express, wouldn’t be out of place in

Bobby’s in Bournemouth, a Debenhams until last May, has been bought for £8 million. One floor is now an art gallery

objections from heritage bodies.

Thank heavens, then, that there are

visionaries with the confidence to

devise sustainable new roles for them.

One is Ashley Nicholson, whose

Verve Properties forked out £8 million

to buy the iconic Bobby’s in the centre

of Bournemouth — a Debenhams

until May last year — and has spent

as much again turning one floor into

an art gallery called Giant (Rachel

Campbell-Johnston reviewed its

opening exhibition here in August),

with other floors housing a food hall,

a craftmakers’ market, a beauty

parlour and a rooftop bar. Visitors

have flocked there, boosting

Bournemouth’s chic credentials as a

weekend destination. A much loved

department store is once again

buzzing with life.

That’s not the only success story.

In autumn the developers Aimrok

Holdings completed a £17 million

conversion of a former Fenwicks in

Leicester into a swish hotel called

the Gresham, while retaining all

the pungent character of this

extraordinary building — which is

topped out like something you might

see in the Bavarian highlands. Another

hotel conversion, of the former Co-op

department store in Newcastle, has

gone even further to achieve

period authenticity. The developer,

Interserve Construction, painstakingly

contracted local companies that had

been involved in building this art

deco showpiece in the 1930s to

make renovations using traditional

techniques. In fact, the distinctive

staircase handrails were repaired by

the great-great-grandson of the man

who installed them. The result? You

will never visit a more lovingly crafted

Premier Inn.

More heartening news comes from

the capital. Sadiq Khan, the mayor

of London, has announced that he is

“revisiting” his decision to nod through

Marks & Spencer’s misconceived

proposal to demolish its 1929 art deco

store near Marble Arch and replace

it with a depressingly bland office

building. Khan’s change of heart has

apparently come after campaigners

produced damning evidence of the

environmental cost of demolition.

So is the tide turning? Are local

politicians starting to realise that

these imposing stores anchoring their

town centres are almost always worth

saving? Let’s hope so. Britain’s towns

and cities are not so full of handsome

architecture that we can afford to

throw away what we have.

A Fenwicks in

Leicester is now

the Gresham,

a swish hotel

Cremona. Walk into the former

Boots emporium in Nottingham, now

occupied by Zara, and you experience

a richness of ornament and stained

glass that evokes a grand 19th-century

villa such as Leighton House in

Kensington. And although it has been

horribly knocked around over the

years, its fate still uncertain, the epic

prow of Lewis’s department store in

Liverpool is one of the city’s most

arresting sights, with its Egyptian-style

entrance topped by Jacob Epstein’s

18ft bronze nude.

Such characterful buildings deserve

saving from the wrecking ball, but

nobody is going to pay to restore them

if they have no role in 21st-century

life. That’s why such attractive stores

as the flamboyantly gabled former

Debenhams in Harrogate, with its

riot of mauve and orange bricks, are

scheduled for demolition despite

Richard Morrison the arts column

Our former department stores deserve a second life, not a wrecking ball

JAMES BRIDLE