Thursday 29 August 2013

Banner's department store, Attercliffe.

Banners department store, Sheffield
By Warofdreams (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons
When I was growing up, I knew nothing of the existence of Banner's department store. For that matter, I knew nothing of Attercliffe itself. My only knowledge of the area was that it existed and, despite its name, it didn't have a cliff.

Sadly, all these years later, I still know little of Banners, but I have at least seen it in the flesh now. What I do know is the place ceased to trade as a department store in 1980 and had the first escalators in Sheffield. It also had a tube system for delivering goods to the customers.

It's such a lovely, neat, building that it seems a shame they can't put it on castors and move it to the city centre where it could again be properly utilised for its original purpose and no longer feel so strangely out of place.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

the "tube system" was used for cash handling not delivering goods. As used to be common when you bought something one payed the shop assistant they placed your cash along with an invoice into a cylinder and put it into the vacuum system. A little while later the system delivered your change ( if any) plus a recite. Your goods were wrapped in a paper parcel and tied with string.
Banners also used to accept "Prudential cheques" in which case any change came in the form of Banner's tokens rather than cash.

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