Howells Department store
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Howells Department Store is a large department store founded by James Howell in the 1856, it is located on St Mary's Street, Cardiff city centre, Cardiff, Wales.
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[edit] History
James Howell's first step towards the present Howells department store began with the establishment of a shop under the Stuart Hall in The Hayes, a street near St Mary's Street. From there the first part of the current store was built in the late-19th century, this part of the building includes an ornate facade that is visible on St Marys Street. In the 1920s a large and well-proportioned neoclassical extension was built up to the corner of St Mary's Street and Heol-y-Cawl. A unique result of this extension was that Bethany Chapel, built on the site of an earlier chapel in 1865, was absorbed into the fabric of the building and its frontage was incorporated into the interior and was visible inside the store up until the mid 1990's.
Further extensions were added throughout the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s, causing the building to show the architectural trends of the Late Victorian era to the Modernism of the 1960s.
Howells ceased to be an independently run store in the 1960s when it was bought out by the House of Fraser group. In the 1990s the Victorian frontage on St Marys Street, neglected for the best part of 50 years, was cleaned and restored, greatly enhancing the building's appearance.
[edit] Present Day
Today, Howells continues to be a major destination for shoppers, especially so after the demise of its long-term rival David Morgans in January 2005.
As of 2007 the store is going through a phased renovation of all departments. House of Fraser are slowly re-branding all of their stores to the core marque, 'House of Fraser'; this move will be repeated at Howells.[1]
[edit] In the media
The store was used as a location in several episodes of the revived Doctor Who, particularly as Henrik's, the department store where Rose Tyler worked before she met the Doctor.[2]
[edit] References
- Various Contributors, Edited by Stewart Williams. The Cardiff Book No.1. Stewart Williams Publishers 1973 ISBN No. 0-900807-05-9
- Various Contributors, Edited by Stewart Williams. The Cardiff Book, Volume 2. Stewart Williams Publishers 1974 ISBN No. 0-900807-09-1
- Peter Finch. Real Cardiff, Volume Two, The Greater City. Seren 2004 ISBN No. 1-85411-384-4 pp. 50. 83.
