Not West Bridgford No. 2

A variant on “Not West Bridgford No. 1”, here we have another shopping parade with strong resemblances to those in West Bridgford, in particular Central Avenue and Loughborough Road. This one happens to be in affluent Pinner, in the heart of Metroland in north-west London, and famous as the birthplace of Sir Elton John. 

Shopping is a crucially important activity for suburbanites wherever they live, as this series of illustrations reflects. Just across from the Loughborough Road shops, in 1960, West Bridgford became the site of what was described as Great Britain’s first hypermarket, an American innovation that would drive the shopping experience into the twentieth century. This was The Future.

 
The GEM, with its big red neon logo was, by today’s standards, a pretty average supermarket, although I recall that it sold furniture, including beds, as well as food and general household items. In due course it became Asda, then a homely British label, and a store that was always well stocked and pleasant to use. For many years the store front faced south, onto the car park, but subsequently, with the new designation as Asda-Walmart, everything became bigger, the layout rotated through 90 degrees to face the east, and traditional shoppers perhaps soon discovered that American ownership of “the future of retail” left something to be desired. Shopping will also be the theme in the third “Not West Bridgford”, to be posted in the near future.