#oldshopfront

Logo date: there were numerous iterations of this logo (and typeface changes for ‘SPORTS’) so it’s a little difficult to date. You'll notice this with the wall mounted sign compared to that above the shop, and the subtle differences of the 'B' in 'JJB' (much like this one) I'd estimate that part of the signage is 90s, but that above the door is 00s. The short lived square logo came in from 2007.

Location: Fishergate, Preston

Ah, JJB. We’ve already written about the lure of the sports store for many teens in the 90s and 00s and the plethora of different chains we had back then when we looked at some old JD branding, but I think we all have a soft spot for JJB. You can almost picture the piles of Umbro clothing and poster of Michael Owen in the window like it was yesterday.

I’d had a tip-off about the JJB in Preston and it didn’t disappoint. To say that this store dominates Fishergate with its wall mounted totem* as you approach is an understatement. You can see it right the entire length of the street... which I guess was the original intention, but it does add a certain air of melancholy about it so many years on.

What’s next door though? A snazzy modern looking and large JD (ouch, bit of a kick in the teeth) which makes this JJB look tiny in comparison. I had a look at some plans of the street to try and work out the unit size in comparison, but bizarrely Numbers 18 (JD) and 19 (JJB) are designated as one block and unit. On the other side? You’ve got a still empty BHS.

Other interesting thing: JJB Sports didn’t actually disappear until late 2012. I could have sworn that it was a casualty of the late-00s, but nope. It’s easy to understand why I thought that though - hit hard by the credit crunch and a large store network, they narrowly avoided administration and started a major restructuring programme with store closures from 2009, including selling a third of the companies shares to Mike Ashley and Sports Direct. 

And therein lies a problem: like many businesses still today, particularly with fashion chains over recent years, the headlines of a business’s financial difficulties often stick with consumers to the point that they assume that they’ve disappeared, rather than the reality of the brand limping along albeit often with a smaller retail footprint. Almost inevitably a further administration is round the corner. Karen Millen, Greenwoods, OddBins, Blue Inc are just a few examples.

*I mean, technically it’s not a totem sign because they come out the ground but I don’t know how else to refer to it. Suggestions on a postcard.

Blockbuster Video Express, Chiswick High Road, London

Nobody needs or wants me to do one of my lengthy blog posts about Blockbuster (maybe you do? But I think we all know the tale), so just enjoy these images of the still empty Chiswick branch. A surprise really given it’s not in a terible location and faces Turnham Green park*

(*once ate a sandwich sat on the grass here, it was a perfectly pleasant experience)

JD Sports

Logo date: 1980 - 2005

Location: St Mark’s, Lincoln; Town Square, Basildon & West 12 Shopping Centre, Shepherd's Bush

Back in the 90s and early-00s there seemed to be a wealth of chain sports stores across the UK. Piled high with team kits and trainers, inevitably with a poster of Michael Owen in the window, every High Street, retail park and shopping centre had one, if not numerous competing branches. But alas not all could survive. Gone are all:sports, First Sports, Sports Soccer, JJB and Giles Sports, all hoovered up when they fell on hard times, leaving just two still going: JD and Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct. 

There’s something about the JD logo still visible with the Lincoln store that almost takes you back to simpler times. A Saturday spent in town with your mates or your mum treating you to that pair of trainers you’d been after. I wanted to preserve these logos, not just because next year will be fifteen years since their replacement, but also because it’s incredibly rare to see this number of variations of one logo. There was a different colour scheme for each department within JD and a specific ‘King of Trainers’ logo too. Take a look...

Above: light boxes for different departments within the Lincoln store; King of Trainers sign from the store within West 12 Shopping Centre, Shepherd's Bush

Top: logo variants seen above windows of the Lincoln store

Bottom row: JD store, Town Square, Basildon displaying a lovely horizontal variant on the logo (May '19) just before the chain relocated to a new branch

Logo date: 1999-2002 (1970-2002)

This retro logo had been on my radar for a while and when I learnt that the Hull branch had relocated, I knew time was of the essence to get some photos before another chain moved in. Apologies to Ross for making him take the photos - just be grateful it wasn’t still open.

The italicised logo seen here in Hull, complete with the curved A, was the logo used from day-dot. You can see it here on one of the first Ann Summers branches on Edgware Road, London in 1970.

This aqua-blue colour scheme was prevalent throughout the 1990s, complete with the famous apple motif, based on Eve taking a bite of the apple in Paradise*. Some minor tweaking at the turn of the millennium led to the serifs being removed from the logo (compare this photo to that of the Hull branch seen above), this was short-lived, however, as there was a more thorough reworking just round the corner. A newer dark-pink look was introduced in 2002 complete with a simplified version of the logo, now with all the characters standing straight.

For a short while in the 00s the apple motif did disappear from some stores with the signage being contained inside a curved chrome box, a possible throwback to the original kink and curve of the A. This was again short-lived with the apple later returning.

In more recent years, the colour scheme has been changed to a much more understated black and chrome across newer stores, with the apple having gone back to its place in heaven. It lived on for a little while in the ‘shopping bag’ icon on the website, but even from there it has now disappeared.

Two asides for you...

I like the touch of having the branch’s street number in the apple above the door with this Hull branch

Ann Summers’ bitten apple logo came seven years ahead of Apple Inc’s

Logo date: unknown; company administration late-1980s

Until demolition began just last month, Grimsby’s ex-House of Holland store was a local landmark for years, lying derelict on the junction of Kent Street and Freeman Street since the late 1980s. Redevelopment of the area saw it knocked down to be turned into office blocks but I managed to get a friend to grab some photos before the bulldozers moved in.

Very little information about the chain exists online bar mentions in a few forums but from my understanding the firm went into administration in the late-1980s (possibly 1987?). HoH was a catalogue based discount furniture and lifestyle store often with large premises, sometimes occupying multiple floors in a building, like a mini-department store. Unlike other purely catalogue businesses it was possible to actually view many of the products in branch. This photo of the Brighton branch shows its grandeur in certain locations.

Before House of Holland this Grimsby building was occupied by Tesco, who relocated in the early 1980s, leading to local discount store Mad Harry’s moving in in November of 1983. Within eighteen months they’d themselves relocated to Grimsby’s former Woolworths store in a slightly more central location on Freeman Street, leading to House of Holland occupying the building not long after.

These days House of Holland is a fashion brand used by designer Henry Holland which makes searching for information on the former 1980s homewares chain very difficult... there’s only disparate and undetailed allusions online eg. this reference in a 1978 article from the Financial Times about the stocking of utility heaters in UK stores, the opening of a store in Cambridge in 1985 and this list of stores in Southend.