Fairfax House Store was meant to become city’s Piccadilly Circus
With the help of colour photos from the 1980s we look back at Bristol’s huge and quirky department store, Fairfax House, and how it was replaced by The Galleries, a shopping mall whose future is now in question
WHEN Fairfax House opened on Thursday March 29, 1962, the manager, a Mr Cavender, told the Post: “Fairfax House can become Bristol’s Piccadilly Circus … Fairfax House has been designed to be a credit to the city of Bristol, and particularly to our own membership.”
The membership he was referring to was the Co-op, “It’s the only store that has been built in Bristol from the savings of ordinary people.”
Fairfax House was by no means the only department store in Broadmead – we already had Lewis’s and Jones’s. What was different was that it represented in bricks, mortar and a lot of glass, post-war social democracy.
The white ribbon was cut by Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, the Bristol-born politician who had been a Labour MP in Sheffield, and as he did so he told the crowd: “It’s not owned by a couple of capitalists, it’s yours.”
Anyone who remembers Fairfax House will recall what a curious building it was. Some 560 feet long and squeezed between Fairfax Street and what was then Narrow Wine Street, it had actually been built on the foundations for a shop, cinema and restaurant complex that had never happened.
It had three different levels of entry, four main elevations and it took several visits before you could find your way around. And the thing everyone remembers was the paternoster lifts, the constantlymoving boxes you hopped in and out of.
In spite of its peculiarities, it was an exciting new development in its day. The post-war construction of Bristol’s shopping centre at Broadmead had taken longer than anyone had expected in 1945, and the addition of this splendid new sixstorey department store seemed to be the last piece in the jigsaw.
Perhaps the most radical feature was the fact that it had its own multi-storey car park, at a time when most of Broadmead’s shoppers, particularly those who chose to shop at the Co-op, were travelling in and out by bus.
And, in keeping with the postwar welfare state spirit, Fairfax House could indeed look after its customers from cradle to grave. You could buy almost everything you needed there, from baby clothes to a Co-op funeral.
More than 20 years on, it had had its day. It was sold in 1985 and demolished three years later to make way for the Galleries. Which in its turn is now facing an uncertain future, with talk of the site being redeveloped.
The pictures for this article were taken by Gordon Young in the late 1980s before, during and after the demolition of Fairfax House and the construction of The Galleries.
Gordon also made a documentary film some years ago, which he has made available on YouTube. He made The Rise & Fall of Fairfax House with the help of retired architect John Kendall, whose original drawings feature in the film.
“My grandmother was the oldest ‘divi’ member in Bristol,” says Gordon, “and cut the tape at the opening of one of the entrances.
“And as a young scallywag I spent much of the school holidays jumping on and off the paternoster lifts. We would travel on the entire circuit, all 360 degrees. Strictly forbidden, but ’elf ’n’ safety was yet to be invented.
“The film was made in 1998 so is a mix of VHS and cine film with a bit of Beethoven bunged on. I strove to make an unashamedly sentimental little piece.”
Watch the film at https://tinyurl. com/bwz95af8.