No shop is a more familiar sight than our bazaar
MARKS & SPENCER STALL STILL THERE 124 YEARS ON
THE Marks & Spencer store on Newcastle’s Northumberland Street has been a magnet for Tyneside shoppers since it opened in 1932.
Though that store remains, two other one-time retail favourites that opened on the same street in the same year have long-since fallen by the wayside – C&A and British Home Stores.
Meanwhile, there is another Newcastle Marks & Spencer outlet which predates the sprawling city centre flagship store.
The brand’s Original Penny Bazaar in the Grade I-listed Grainger Market opened in 1895. It was a very different world: 76-year-old Queen Victoria was on the throne, the Prime Minister was Tory peer the Marquess of Salisbury and a local football club formed three years earlier, Newcastle United, was attempting to establish itself.
Michael Marks, a Polish refugee, and one of the founders of Marks & Spencer, opened the store with the motto: “Don’t ask the price – it’s a penny.”
It was one of a series of penny bazaars opened in towns and cities across Britain.
The bazaars were hailed as a shopping revolution, providing quality goods at affordable prices to all. The brand’s high-street stores would follow in the years that followed. Michael Marks opened the first stall in Leeds in 1894. The Newcastle outlet opened a year later and today remains the oldest Marks & Spencer store in the UK.
Wander into the Grainger Market in 2019 and the store is still reassuringly present and correct.
The lamps still shine from their original mantles, but the goods on sale are now priced at more than a penny!
In 2005, on the 110th anniversary of the bazaar’s opening, it was refurbished to reflect its long history.
Behind the counter is a display of old photos illustrating the changing face of the outlet. The frontage remains the same, with its famous signage.