The Bentall Centre is a large shopping centre in

Kingston upon Thames Kingston upon Thames, colloquially known as Kingston, is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, south-west London, England. It is situated on the River Thames, south-west of Charing Cross. It is an ancient market town, notable as ...

, Greater London, England, which opened in 1992. It has been built in the retail space of

Bentalls Bentalls was a British department store chain based in Kingston upon Thames. The well regarded department store began as a drapery shop, founded by Frank Bentall in 1867. The business expanded significantly throughout the 20th century and operat ...

department store, first established on the site in 1867. Bentalls, now part of the Fenwick group, retains a large premium department store in the development. The centre is located adjacent to

John Lewis Kingston John Lewis Kingston is a John Lewis & Partners department store in Kingston upon Thames, London, England. Opened in September 1990, the store is located adjacent to Kingston Bridge and The Bentall Centre. The building is bisected by the A308 road ...

, as well as the historic market town centre. There are 75 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 a ...

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 British real estate investing , real estate investment management firm. , it had 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

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

Zara Zara may refer to: Businesses * Zara (retailer), a fashion retail company based in Spain * Zara Investment Holding, a Jordanian holding company * Continental Hotel Zara, Budapest, Hungary People and fictional characters * Zara (name), primari ...

, H&M,

Waterstones Waterstones Booksellers Limited, trading as Waterstones (formerly Waterstone's), is a British bookselling, book retailer based in London, England, owned by the American investment group Elliott Investment Management. It operates 311 shops, ma ...

, EE,

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and

WHSmith WH Smith plc, trading as WHSmith (also written WH Smith and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son), is a British retailer, with headquarters in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of railway station, airport, port, hospital and motorway service s ...

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 Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London, England. Since 1066, it has been the location of the coronations of 40 English and British m ...

or the dome of

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London in the Church of Engl ...

. 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 Electric motor, motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the st ...

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 an ...

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 File:Bentalls_Centre_view_onto_common_parts.jpg, view

References

External links

* {{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