The Headrow. An important street passing through the Leeds city centre.
The old W. H. Smith was still there. I recall visiting it on my first day in Leeds in 1993!
Albion Street. At the junction of Albion Street and the Headrow was the Austicks bookshop. It was once a large chain of bookstores in Leeds. It had then only to compete with Waterstones and Blackwell's. When Borders came in, it spelt the end. Austicks could not compete with the nationwide chains of Borders and Waterstones and was soon defunct.
Leeds, July 2006
6 comments:
Lucky! I so wanna go there! Great shots anyhow.
You should visit Leeds for the Yorkshire Dales! It is a gateway to the beautiful great outdoors.
During summer, the place is great for electronic music! Trance, ambient, techno and more!
This is not correct. There was no Blackwells in the City at that time. Blackwells bought all the Austicks shops in Leeds later and closed all but one (kept open the one near the University and changed its name) Today books are still sold online from www.austicks.com so defunct is not the right word either!
Thanks for the clarifications.
I greatly appreciate it.
I had wondered as to the fate of all the Austicks bookstores when I re-visited Leeds a decade later.
The Austicks bookshop at the junction of Albion Street and the Headrow was still very busy in 1992 when I used to go into the city centre when I got some free time between studying. There was lots of visits and book signing days, they even started to sell VHS tapes . Recall seeing an empty case of the newly recovered "Tomb of the cybermen" in May of that year, a month before the release in June.
I was leaving the shop one day in 1992 when a famous boxer was promoting his book with the BBC filming outside. I lived in York and never told my family that I used to go off to Leeds shopping because they thought I was at college until late most days. That evening I was washing up in the kitchen when my mother shouted out, is that you on TV. Can't be I said that's the middle of Leeds isn't it! Oh yes the room confirmed
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