The death of the department store

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

In June last year, the staff of Sheffield's John Lewis department store began the sad task known as de-rigging": clearing shelves and boxing up goods to be sent for sale elsewhere. The city-centre store had been shut since the start of the year, and in March 2021, the John Lewis Partnership had announced that it intended to close the store for good.

Some employees said they were too distraught to take part in all the packing-up. But others volunteered to participate, wanting to bid farewell to their colleagues and the building some of them had worked in for decades. There was a lot of reminiscing, as well as an undercurrent of anger: tears and laughter in equal measure," one former employee told me. Some people took away souvenirs, including the store directories that had sat next to escalators and staircases.