Kendals is the previous name of a

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Since 2005, the store now operates as

House of Fraser House of Fraser (also operating as Frasers) is a British department store group with 44 locations across the United Kingdom, which is now part of Frasers Group. It was established in Glasgow, Scotland in 1849 as Arthur and Fraser. By 1891, it w ...

. The store had previously been known during its operation as Kendal Milne, Kendal, Milne & Co, Kendal, Milne & Faulkner, Harrods or Watts.

History

The store was opened as Watts' in 1832, and became Kendal, Milne & Faulkner when three employees bought out the business and re-opened it in 1836.Ottewell, David (28 October 2005
"Kendals name dropped forever"
'' ManchesterEveningNews.co.uk'' (Retrieved: 19 February 2010) The founder John Watts had begun a drapery business in Deansgate in 1796 which became prosperous and was later known as "The Bazaar" and expanded onto a site on the other side of Deansgate. The store building of 1836 (on the east side) was reconstructed after the street widening of 1873 by the architect E. J. Thompson. The site of the present store was occupied by the cabinet showrooms, workshops and packing departments. It was purchased by

Harrods Harrods Limited is a department store located on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, England. It is currently owned by the state of Qatar via its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority. The Harrods brand also applies to other ...

in 1919, and was called Harrods for a period in the 1920s, but the name swiftly reverted to Kendal Milne following protests from customers and staff. The Harrods group, along with Kendals, was taken over by

in 1959. The store continued trading as Kendals until 2005, when, after extensive refurbishment, the store was renamed House of Fraser Manchester. Despite the re-branding of Kendals, the 'Kendal, Milne and Co' name is still clearly visible on marble fascias above the store's entrances. The store is located in a purpose-built

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

building on

Deansgate Deansgate is a main road (part of the A56) through Manchester City Centre, England. It runs roughly north–south in a near straight route through the western part of the city centre and is the longest road in the city centre at over one mile ...

, with of retail space, making it Manchester's largest department store (the previous largest being

Debenhams Debenhams plc was a British department store chain operating in the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1778 as a single store in London and grew to 178 locations across those countries, also owning the Danish ...

Market Street Market Street may refer to: *Market Street, Cambridge, England *Market Street, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia * Market Street, George Town, Penang, Malaysia *Market Street, Manchester, England *Market Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia ...

until its closure in 2021) at . The present store was designed by Harrods' in-house architect, Louis David Blanc, with input from a local architect J. S. Beaumont, in 1938 and completed in 1939. It is a

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. It operated for many years alongside the Victorian store building on the opposite side of Deansgate (opened in 1873). A large

multi-storey car park A multistorey car park (British and Singapore English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistory, parking building, parking structure, parkade (mainly Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck or indoor parking, is a build ...

stands to the west of the store. In October 2018, it was announced that the House of Fraser store would close in late January 2019 due to being unable to sort out a crucial restructuring deal. However in November 2018 it was announced that the store had been saved from closure. In October 2020, plans emerged which suggest the store will close once and for all, with the store refurbished, extended and repurposed as offices. The multi-storey car park to the west would be demolished and replaced by further office space and public realm created between the two buildings.

References

External links

House of Fraser (official website)
''HouseofFraser.co.uk'' {{Coord, 53.4818, -2.2479, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Art Deco architecture in England Defunct department stores of the United Kingdom Department store buildings in the United Kingdom Grade II listed buildings in Manchester House of Fraser Department stores of the United Kingdom Harrods Retailing in Manchester

History

See also

References

External links