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Paisley - My Pics Of Old Or Unusual Buildings Or Places Of Interest.


Sonny

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There was a petrol station opposite the RAI entrance on the corner across from where the doctor's is now. Don't know if that's the right location or not as I am not old enough to remember the cinema.

Yes faintly remember the petrol station and my dad using it while I sat in the back. Had totally forgotten that!
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Details of the above pic.............................

This week’s "Then" image from the Heritage Library is an aerial view taken from Hamilton Court at Calside about mid 60's, showing the Royal Alexandra Infirmary, and the greens of Charleston Bowling Club. Beyond that you can see Saucel Hill and in the distance a still working Anchor Mill complex and Hunterhill High Flats

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  • 2 weeks later...

Quite an interesting wee piece here....................

High Street - Woolworth
Woolworth's first opened at 14 High Street, Paisley on 17 January 1925. It proved so busy that company bosses were soon challenging the property department to expand or move. It took them ten years to buy the land behind the store and extend it back to School Wynd. After the war it was earmarked for further development, but neither neighbour was willing to move. Because it was opposite Marks and Spencer, and therefore deemed to be at 100% pitch, executives wouldn't countenance moving anywhere else and kept holding out for one of the neighbours to accept the Company's increasingly generous offers for their freeholds. The store's success in the Fifties means that the freehold of No.14 alone was independently valued at £93,000 in 1957, more than twice the value of the store in Stirling, which had already incorporated its neighbour.
I guess the proprietors of the Gibson Tearooms finally decided to retire in around 1967, using a stash of cash from Woolies to top up their pension pot. Certainly the new look store's address was No. 12-14, which means it incorporated the former premises to its left. You'll see a lot of blurb about how it had a special design to match the style of buildings in Paisley and the requirements of the local council. The extension and rebuilding works were completed without the store ever closing, which was typically achieved by building a new shell round the outside of the store first, building the new bit (in the former Gibsons site), then moving into that, and then demolishing the interior of the old store and rebuilding it to match. The grand opening of the 'new Paisley' was on 25 October 1969. It had become the fifth largest store in Scotland (after Princess Street Edinburgh, two in Glasgow and one in Aberdeen), with 21,360 square feet of selling space across two floors, linked by escalator.
When Woolworth was taken over in the Eighties, the new owners (Kingfisher plc) asset-stripped a lot of freehold property, including virtually all of the branches over 15,000 square feet. The five largest stores in Scotland all closed, with the money used to finance the expansion of B&Q into Scotland, and the acquisition of the Comet electricals chain and Superdrug cut price chemists. The Paisley Woolworth's closed for the last time on 9 July 1988, after the building was sold to a development company.
With thanks to Paul Seaton
Author of the Woolworths Museum and 'A Sixpenny Romance, celebrating a century of value at Woolworths'
'A Sixpenny Romance' is available from Amazon http://tinyurl.com/npjbhhs
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6 hours ago, faraway saint said:

Woolies, a wonderland for me for years.

I remember Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was on display at the rear on School Wynd. 

We had one up here in Arbroath for quite a few years when we moved up here late 1989. 

Can't remember when it went, a sad day. :(

May be an image of outdoors and text

The 7ft store detective was the stand out memory

To stop us nicking the sweets at the pic and mix next to enterance

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7 hours ago, faraway saint said:

Henry Cooper in Paisley 1972

British Heavyweight Boxing Champion and holder of three Lonsdale belts, Henry Cooper signing autographs in Woolies whilst on a promotional tour plugging 'Brut' Aftershave

May be an image of 5 people and people standing

Is that Tony Hadley at the back 😆

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Woolworth's were absolute bawbags in their treatment of Paisley.

They closed the High St store in 1988 but made no attempt to relocate within the town. That meant that the biggest town in Scotland didn't have one of their outlets while hovels like Greenock, Falkirk and Kirkcaldy had a Woolies right up until their demise in 2008-09.

They deserved all they got.

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13 hours ago, Eric Arthur Blair said:

Woolworth's were absolute bawbags in their treatment of Paisley.

They closed the High St store in 1988 but made no attempt to relocate within the town. That meant that the biggest town in Scotland didn't have one of their outlets while hovels like Greenock, Falkirk and Kirkcaldy had a Woolies right up until their demise in 2008-09.

They deserved all they got.

Kingfisher shut all there biggest Woolworth stores in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Paisley to re-invest elsewhere.  There still doing alright.

Homepage (kingfisher.com)

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