Halls of delight: Rare pictures of Yorkshire’s favourite department stores

Leeds had its Schofields, as did Sheffield, Skipton and Harrogate; Bradford its Busbys and Brown, Muffs. Vying for trade were Lewis’s in Leeds and Roberts Brothers in Sheffield, amongst others.

For many shoppers, a visit to one of these grand old department stories was a day out in itself, with stops at the fashion counters and the toy floor punctuated by lunch in the silver service restaurant.

Payment by cash or cheques was placed by the sales staff into metal tubes which were sucked through a system of vacuum tubes to be processed by the cashiers on the top floor.

Most of the stores were late Victorian or Edwardian enterprises, often grown from smaller drapery businesses, and as dispensaries of what would now be termed retail therapy, they were the they were the Harley Street specialists.

The earliest picture here, taken around 1910, shows Schofields window in Leeds’ Victoria Arcade, displaying lace collars and blouses. Four decades later, long queues can be seen forming for the annual sale.

The news this week that John Lewis (no relation to Lewis’s) may not re-open all its stores after the lockdown, is a reminder of their transience. But in one West Riding town, the tradition is still thriving.

Harveys of Halifax, which dates from the 1920s, retains some 30,000 sq ft of selling space at its main branch and has plans for future expansion. The store is unrecognisable from the one that opened in 1950 on the site of an old dress warehouse on Rawson Street, but it remains unlike most, a family-owned concern.