New stores for old
       
The Cathedral of St Peter, Liverpool - consecrated in 1702 and demolished in 1922. The Church Street site was redeveloped by Woolworth Properties to provide premises for Woolies, C&A and Littlewoods. The new Anglican Cathedral was in Hope Street about a mile away. The new Cathedral wasn't finally finished until the 1970s.

In the early 1920s F. W. Woolworth was simply unbeatable - at the forefront of a retail revolution that introduced good quality mass produced goods that everyone could afford. Customers loved it. The new MD, William Stephenson, was determined to capitalise on the success and ordered a major expansion programme - both to add more stores and to get larger, freehold premises for the existing stores.
       
The flagship Liverpool store is a great example of this. The original premises at 25-25a Church Street were rented - indeed the landlord asked for a year's rental in advance just in case the business failed !

The premises were cramped and always packed out with shoppers, and sales were constrained by the available space.

The Construction Department were given the challenge - and initially they were stumped.  There were no larger premises readily available, all the shops were occupied and they didn't consider any of them a good prospect for redevelopment.  Then, a brainwave.

Laying foundations for a larger Livepool store. Until the previous year this was the crypt of the Cathedral of St Peter. The original store is opposite and is very much open for business. (Image: Paul Seaton)
       
Just direct your feet (to the sunny side of the street). A new enlarged Woolies opened in 1923 directly opposite the original store. (Image: Valentines Postcard for F. W. Woolworth / Paul Seaton) Working with the City Fathers and the Diocese of Liverpool, Woolworths introduced a scheme to demolish the eighteenth century Cathedral Church of St Peter (top left) , which would be relocated to a more appropriate site in Hope Street away from the main shopping street.  In its place would be large new premises to be shared between Woolworths and C&A, directly opposite the original Woolies.  Work started in 1921 (above right) and the Woolies was completed in August 1923.
       
Work on the Anglican Cathedral progressed more slowly.  While part of the building was finished quickly, work was set back by the Liverpool Blitz during World War II and was only completed just in time for the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977 - by which time the new Woolies had been trading for 54 years.
       
In keeping with a longstanding tradition, the day before the re-opening customers were invited in to browse, but not buy.  There were fireworks, a full orchestra and brass band - and free tea and cakes for everyone. 

The salesfloor (below) looked spectacular setting the standard for the next fifteen years.  A similar design was repeated in stores across the country, but Liverpool was the first and way ahead of its time.  Customers loved it !
       

A front view of the salesfloor in Church Street Liverpool in 1923.

       
Above and below: the finest mahogany counters in the brand new Liverpool store which opened in 1923. Photo frames, luggage, buckets and bowls and Stationery (all of which feature in the picture) remain important parts of the range to this day.
       

The prototype for many Woolworth stores, this is the main salesfloor at the enlarged store in Church Street, Liverpool, pictured from the back of the salesfloor. There are ranges of children's clothes in the foreground, with housewares on the right, stationery and toiletries in the middle of the store and sweets at the front.

       
The formula was a great success.  Over the coming seven years most of the forty four pre-war stores were relocated into larger freehold premises, or extended onto vacant land.  With low land prices and a ready pool of labour for building works, the move into freehold properties was a very wise one.  A higher asset base increased investor confidence and insulated the Company from fluctuations in rental prices.  Lord Asa Briggs notes in his history of Marks and Spencer, how they wished they had the same money to invest in properties as Woolworths in the 1920s, as they struggled to expand.  At the time the M&S property department had two options in locating a store - by preference next door to Woolworths, or failing that directly opposite.  You can still see the results of this policy in a number of large provincial towns to this day!
       

1920s Gallery Home

20s overview: stepping up the pace   Visit a 1920s store  
Rapid expansion -  an opening every 17 days   Supplier partnerships and product development
The first gramophone records   Play the Little Marvel record "What'll you do"  
Woolies in the community    Alice White in "The Girl from Woolworths"
Sixpenny pops "We'll have a Woolworth Wedding"
50th birthday of the American Woolworth
Price quiz - dateline 1929