page_title: Hanningtons
section_title: Closure and legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Hanningtons / Closure and legacy
caption_attribution_description: Former Hanningtons Department Store, East Street/Market Street/North Street, Brighton, City of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex. Founded in 1808 by Smith Hannington. Continued as a department store until 2001. Listed at Grade II by English Heritage (IoE Code 480663). This section is 3–14 North Street.
context_page_description: Hanningtons was a department store located in Brighton, part of the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. Prominently situated in a central position in Brighton, it had an unbroken history of trading for nearly 200 years until its closure in 2001. It was the city's oldest, largest and most diverse department store: its 70 departments offered clothes and household goods of all types, and services ranging from funeral arrangement to carpet-cleaning. "Famous" and "prestigious", it was known locally as the "Harrods of Brighton". It remained in family ownership until the 1960s, and subsequent owners ran the business according to the principles of the Hannington family.
  Hanningtons grew from a single shop on the town's North Street into a large store spanning numerous shop units on that road and neighbouring streets. Some services were housed in other buildings elsewhere in Brighton and Hove. Regular expansion meant many changes to the main building, but its overall architectural style dates from the 1860s when architect William Russell unified the shop units owned by Hanningtons at that time into a common style.
context_section_description: Hanningtons was the last survivor of Brighton and Hove's large independent department stores: all the others had closed since the 1980s.  Contributing factors included the increased popularity of out-of-town shopping centre, the opening of large town-centre malls such as County Mall at Crawley in 1992 and the rebuilt Churchill Square itself in 1998, and the emergence of designer outlet centres such as McArthurGlen Ashford.  In 2001, the directors decided to close the store and sell the buildings.  The last day of trading was 30 June 2001, but a full-scale sale took place for weeks beforehand.  In July 2004, all the fixtures and fittings of the store were auctioned.  The store was reopened temporarily, and "a large crowd gathered" to bid for the 750 lots—some of which sold for many times higher than their guide price.  
  A property investment company called Regina Estates bought the premises for £23.5 million in 2000.  However, by June 2014, RBS Real Estate Asset Management (part of The Royal Bank of Scotland) owned all of the former Hanningtons buildings on North Street, along with nearby buildings such as Huntingdon House, an adjacent office block.  Regina Estates received planning permission to divide the building into smaller shop units, and as of October 2014 various tenants now occupy the individual units:
  1–2 North Street: Kurt Geiger (footwear retailer)
  3 North Street: Bravissimo (lingerie retailer)
  4 North Street: The White Company (homeware retailer)
  5 North Street: Sorriso (women's clothing)
  6–7 North Street: Cath Kidston
  8–10 North St: Blacks (outdoor goods retailer)
  11–12 North Street: Tiger (variety store)
  Many of the units were empty until 2004, but in that year several high-end fashion retailers established themselves in the East Street part of the building: L.K.Bennett, United Colors of Benetton, Mango and—in the prominent corner site facing Castle Square—Kurt Geiger.  The other units along North Street were said in 2004 to be occupied by "a succession of short-term lets".  The units at 39–42 East Street, the Grade II-listed section, were occupied by clothing retailer Monsoon by 2010, but in July 2014 the store moved to the Churchill Square shopping centre.
  Hanningtons' funeral director business has moved to Hove but continues to trade.  The former Hanningtons Furniture Depository on Davigdor Road, which was sold off in 1969, was sold to the Legal & General Assurance Society, for whom it was converted into an "elegant" office in 1972.  They occupied the building until 2005, after which it remained empty until it was converted into the Montefiore Hospital in 2011–12.
  Brighton Museum & Art Gallery holds items including a Hanningtons bag, a silk and wool bodice made in the 1870s, and an 1890s satin mourning mantle.  These garments would have been handmade in the store.
  For many years in the 19th century, and continuing into the early 20th century, Hanningtons supplied clothing to residents of the Percy and Wagner Almshouses, a set of almshouses established in 1795 and added to in 1859.  They were for poor widows and unmarried women within the parish of Brighton.  Hanningtons provided each resident with two gowns valued between 12 and 15 shillings and a duffel cloak "not to exceed in value 21 shillings nor less than 18 shillings" in alternate years, and a black bonnet not exceeding 10 shillings in value once every three years.  This later changed to two gowns and bonnets every year and a duffel cloak once every three years.
  The section of the store facing East Street was listed at Grade II on 19 October 1994.  English Heritage defines Grade II-listed buildings as "nationally important and of special interest".  As of February 2001, there were 1,124 Grade II-listed buildings and structures, and 1,218 listed buildings of all grades, in the city of Brighton and Hove.
caption: The North Street units (pictured in October 2014) have a variety of occupants.
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