Welwyn Stores

Wow - thank you everyone for your kind comments on yesterday's montage marking my 100th Blip - that really did make my day.

This week I'm having a daily cycle to Welwyn Garden City to pick up a series of DVDs being given away by the Telegraph. So responding to the pleas of my garden wildlife for a bit privacy I'm taking advantage of being out in "the big city". On Monday we had The view along Parkway and today we have a history lesson on Welwyn Stores:

The original planners intended that all the residents of Welwyn Garden City would shop in one shop and created the Welwyn Stores, a monopoly which caused some local resentment. Commercial pressures have since ensured much more competition and variety, and the Welwyn Stores were in 1984 taken over by the John Lewis Partnership.

The history of Welwyn Stores starts when it was opened on 14 October 1921. It was designed not merely as a shop, but also as a social centre for the town and in 1923 an extension was added offering refreshments and a venue for meetings and dances. It continued to flourish and in 1937 it was announced that a major new building was to be erected.

The new department store building also contained a sports club, 62 flats and a Masonic suite, and was the largest building in Hertfordshire at the time. Designed by Louis de Soissons, the architect who planned Welwyn Garden City, it was opened with great celebrations.

In 1950 the Howard Gallery and a launderette were added and a new second floor of 4,000 square feet, devoted to furniture, was opened in October 1963. In 1968 a new extension was added to the building providing a further 30,000 square feet of trading space.

This housed the new food hall, designed with a 'Scandinavian concept', which was opened in 1969 by the famous TV cooks of the day, Fanny and Johnny Craddock.

On 27 August 1983 it was announced that the John Lewis Partnership was acquiring Welwyn Stores and it became a full part of the Partnership on 30 July the following year.

I must say that I like the concept of having "one shop" that serves and ploughs back the profits into the local community, but I can also see that it's never going to be commercially viable. I'm afraid we're now well down the road of having identical town centres with identical retail outlets because that is commercially viable. With the large supermarkets now selling virtually everything we may well end up with "one shop", but serving and ploughing back profits into the local community? Well if you believe their adverts....

On the other hand, my mate who used to be a shopkeeper in Peebles took me into the local independent wine merchant where we bought our obligatory bottles of whisky for a wee trip away. I did notice on my next trip to the supermarket I'd "overpaid" by £10 a bottle. Looks to me like the writing's on the wall - unless we can somehow build a new wall.