The former Debenham’s department store building in Bristol has been transformed into ‘Shredenhams’, a pop-up skatepark ‘plaza’ in the lower ground-floor retail spaces. Operated by the locally based and not-for-profit Campus Skateboarding, the venue also includes a cafe and bar, with retro arcade games, pool, and table tennis.

Debenhams Bristol closed in May 2021 after the business entered administration, and has remained empty ever since. Demolition and redevelopment of the 1950s building was consented in April 2024, despite strong objections from C20 Society, Historic England, Bristol Civic Society, SAVE Britain’s Heritage and others.

Could the building still be saved?

While the skatepark is currently only intended as a meanwhile use with a short-term lease until August 2025, there are hopes this will be extended and it could become more than just a temporary arrangement. Shredenhams is the latest in a growing number of participatory sport and leisure activities offering unconventional reuse solutions for Britain’s vacant department stores.

Director of Campus Skateboarding, Tim Noakes, commented: “I think it’s every skateboarder’s dream”. He said the ground inside the former department store is “perfect” for skateboarding, adding “[It’s] nice and flat and smooth, and it has good hard tiles for a good crisp clean pop”.

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‘Impressive Phoenix’

The Bristol Debenhams (formerly the Jones & Co department store) was a significant building in the post-war reconstruction of Bristol’s shopping precinct, which was devastated by bombing during the Second World War. Designed in 1952-4 by Thomas Overbury of the architectural practice of Healing & Overbury, the building was very well received when it was opened in 1957 by the city’s Lord Mayor, Ald. Percy Raymond.

A sophisticated 5-storey, stone-faced building, the store overlooks the St James Barton roundabout to the north, serving as a landmark building on this important traffic intersection, and faces the Horsefair to the south. Described by the local press at the time of opening as “an ‘impressive Phoenix’ which has risen out of the dust of the Bristol blitz…the clean-cut, yet graceful lines of the new building adds dignity to Bristol’s shopping centre”.

Demolitions still beckons

Bristol City Councilors approved plans by London and Bristol-based practice AWW in April 2024 (voting 6-4 in favour) to completely demolish the Debenhams building. The controversial new 4ha scheme was drawn-up for investors AEW UK and includes a 28 storey tower – set to be the city’s tallest building – and 502 apartments, of which only 75 would be affordable homes.

The Society strongly disagreed with the applicant’s assessment of the former store’s heritage significance as ‘low’, and their claims to have considered options for reuse. They cited difficulties with ‘great’ floor heights and floor plate depths and argued that the fact that ‘the building would only be able to accommodate two additional floors’ makes the scheme unviable. Though unlisted, the building is structurally sound and well suited to upwards extension. The Shredenhams pop-up has shown how the building could be adaptively reused for creative and community ventures at lower levels, with office and residential use on the upper levels.

Since the launch of C20’s Department Stores campaign in 2021, we have seen numerous excellent examples of schemes to adapt and convert department stores for a range of different uses.

Positive emerging case-studies include:

• The former John Lewis / Cole Brothers (1963-64) in Sheffield
  Reuse: Conversion by developer Urban Splash into workspace and cultural venue.
• The former John Lewis / Norco House (1966-70) in Aberdeen
  Reuse: Conversion to an indoor multi-level go-kart circuit and entertainment centre.
• The former Debenhams / Bon Marche in Gloucester – a 1960s department store by Healing and Overbury, the same architects who designed the Bristol store
  Reuse: Conversion into the University of Gloucester’s new city campus
• The former Debenhams/ Rylands building (1920s/30s)in Manchester
  Reuse: Ground-floor retail space with offices, leisure space and a roof garden above.
• The former Knight and Lee (1950s) in Portsmouth.
  Reuse: Mixed-use including hotel, gym, cinema, and food hall.

In addition, C20 and Ian Chalk Architects recently launched our proposals for The Dunn: a new national centre for skateboarding and wheel sports within the former Richard Dunn Sports Centre in Bradford.