The Bentall Centre is a large shopping centre in
Kingston upon Thames
Kingston upon Thames (hyphenated until 1965, colloquially known as Kingston) is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, England. It is situated on the River Thames and southwest of Charing Cross. It is notable ...
, Greater London, England, which opened in 1992. It has been built in the retail space of
Bentalls department store, opened in 1935.
Bentalls, now part of the Fenwick group, retains a large premium department store in the renovated building. The centre is located adjacent to
John Lewis Kingston, as well as the historic market town centre. There are 82 stores within the centre.
History and development
In 1987, construction began on creating a new Bentalls department store and shopping centre. This new development was to include a five level department store and a four level adjoining shopping centre including over 100 retail units. A pedestrian bridge across the
Kingston Relief Road allowed access to and from the multi-storey car parks to the shopping centre.
The development took five years to complete and was built in two phases, allowing the existing department store to trade throughout the development period on a reduced footprint. The first phase, the 'new' department store opened in July 1990. The completed shopping centre was opened in November 1992 by Edward Bentall (descendant of Frank Bentall) and Nick Price from
Norwich Union
Norwich Union was the name of insurance company Aviva's British arm before June 2009. It was originally established in 1797. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
On 29 April 2008, Aviva ...
with a floor area of .
In 2012, it was reported that the centre is owned by the London-based Dutch privately held real estate investment company
Meyer Bergman
MARK Capital Management (previously Meyer Bergman) is a privately held real estate investing, real estate investment management firm with more than €7 billion in assets under management. MARK Capital Management was formed in 2004 by its chairma ...
.
Current operations
Stores
Major stores in the centre include
Bentalls department store,
an Apple Store,
Zara,
H&M,
Waterstones
Waterstones, formerly Waterstone's, is a British book retailer that operates 311 shops, mainly in the United Kingdom and also other nearby countries. As of February 2014, it employs around 3,500 staff in the UK and Europe. An average-sized Wa ...
,
EE,
Starbucks,
Vodafone
Vodafone Group plc () is a British multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania.
, Vod ...
and
WHSmith
WHSmith (also written WH Smith, and known colloquially as Smith's and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son) is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and m ...
.
Unique features
The shopping centre's atrium ceiling is higher than the nave of
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the Unite ...
or the dome of
St Paul's Cathedral.
The original department store's 1935 façade designed by
Maurice Webb was retained.
Another significant feature of the centre is an
escalator
An escalator is a moving staircase which carries people between floors of a building or structure. It consists of a motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the step tread horizo ...
which travels from the ground to the second floor. It is the largest single truss escalator in the world with only a top and bottom support.
When opened, a statue of Leonard Bentall by
William Reid Dick
Sir William Reid Dick, (13 January 1878 – 1 October 1961) was a Scottish sculptor known for his innovative stylisation of form in his monument sculptures and simplicity in his portraits. He became an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1921, a ...
was placed on the top floor looking down across the whole centre. However, when
Fenwick bought the department store in 2001,
they moved it to a secondary location as they believed it affected the sight lines into the store.
On opening, the Bentall Centre was the first shopping centre in the UK to adopt a "
no smoking" policy throughout.
Gallery
File:A department store, Kingston upon Thames. - panoramio.jpg, The interior of The Bentall Centre
File:Bentalls Centre (roof).jpg, The atrium ceiling at The Bentall Centre
References
External links
Bentall Centre
{{Shopping centres in London
Shopping centres in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames
History of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames
Shopping malls established in 1992
1992 establishments in England