From the archive: The death of the department store

The Audio Long Read

The Guardian

Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 July 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

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Summary

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, from 2022: the closure of John Lewis’s store in Sheffield after almost 60 years was a bitter blow. As debate rages over what to do with the huge empty site, the city is becoming a test case for where Britain’s urban centres may be heading Written and read by John Harris. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Guardian.
0:09.6	Bonjour, this is Julia Bradbury, and I've just been uncovering Normandy's hidden gems with Britney Ferries.
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1:07.5	Discover more at theguardian.com forward slash travel Southeast Asia.
1:11.4	This message was paid for by Hilton.
1:17.2	The Guardian Archive Longread.
1:37.6	Hi. Hi, my name is John Harris, and I'm the author of The Death of the Department Store, which was published in 2022.
1:44.2	Sheffield is a city that I'm in the habit of going to quite a lot. And I was aware that when the huge John Lewis store closed there, there was a sort of ongoing
1:50.3	controversy, quite a sharp argument in the city about what to do with it and whether to knock
1:56.8	it down or to repurpose it.
1:59.0	And that reflected a huge issue in lots of places up and down
2:03.5	the country about empty department stores, which sounds very simple, but they're the sort of
	...

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