Department Stores And Coffe Shops In High Street

Grew up in Bromley in 19602' /70's, and remember the Harrison Gibson fire. The story I heard was about all that was saved (pulled through the underground passage across to the newer store in ringers road) was the store directors desk and a very hot bottle of port!! The chariot Wheel / Trojan Room were i think at the top of the new store, and eventually were bought out by the manager who moved them down to westmoreland place at Bromley south where they traded happily for many years. The rear wall of the store stayed upright (much to the annoyance of some at The Salvation Army behind who hoped it would fall on their church and allow them to rebuild!!) I'm not sure about the insurance rumour, as I always understood that Army & Navy stores had already agreed to buy Harrison Gibsons at Bromley before the fire....
And there was a fire at Timothy Whites (who had just been bought out by Boots, who coincidentally had the next door store in the high street).
Also remember a fire at the New Theatre, just before it was due to be demolished as part of the rebuilding of the library / churchill theatre / British Home Stores.

In 1979 I had my first real job, for the summer holidays as a porter at Medhursts, (then part of a group called UDS United Drapery Stores, which then became Allders) at the time all but the front 20 ft or so of the store was demolished and rebuilt, replacing the rabbit warren of various floors and departments with a new modern department store behind the old facarde with the store name in stone lettering at high level. The current shoppers have no idea how fortunate they are!!
Across from Medhursts was a David Greig's grocery store .... Bromley had two, one at the market square and one now demolished at Bromley south, Both stores had a thistle on the front of the building at high level..... and a gentlemens agreement with another family firm, Sainsbury's , not to directly compete. So we didn't get a sainsbury's until the Mall was built, and Greigs had gone.
The first supermarket was on the market square, Caters, where the Lloyds Bank is now. no one thought you needed a car park back then, just a good bus service!!. I remember the fish counter wrapped around one of the round pillars on the ground floor.
I can remember as a very young boy standing outside the Methodist church on the high street, watching the demolision team burning the roof timbers as they cleared the site for a new commercial block, with the church relocated into a new building around the back. That too is now gone, and the church now sits on West street on the site of the old parish primary school.The church from the 1960's had to move to make way for the glades shopping centre.
Another church, bombed out in WW2 was the united reformed church that lost its battle with developers and was rebuilt a few feet along on Widmore road as part of the same development that ran right through the centre of Bromley in the 1980's, taking away the Co-op department store with its passenger lift with open mesh sides and gates, and behind the store was a large yard at the back for the local co-op milkmen.
Before my time there was a story that in WW2, lord haw haw in one of his propaganda broadcasts from Nazi Germany threatened that the next air raid would stop the clock on Wolfe and Hollander's building in the high street. Allegedly the bombers missed the store, and the clock was running until relatively recently. WW2 caused considerable damage to Bromley, not only was the town on the way in and out of London, but the bombers who missed the RAF bases at Biggin Hill, Croydon and others would offload their bombs to get lighter, and therefore higher , and away from the antiaircraft guns, and Bromley was often hit.
The house I grew up in on Cedar Road was one such, having to be rebuilt after the war. Likewise most of the churches were hit, I guess they were easy targets to spot. The Parish churches at Bromley South (St Marks) and ss Peter & Paul were both badly damaged. One night the folk running The Salvation Army came home , having spent all night helping those who had been bombed out, only to find their own house had been hit in the raid, and they were in need of help as well!
More recent redevelopements at the north on the A21 have replaced retail and office space with the new courts buildings, and one side of tweedy road was demolished ( the grass area opposite what were police officers flats is all that is left of the back gardens of a row of big victorian houses, most of which had been converted into flats.) as part of the big A21 Kentish way bypass for central bromley.
Importers was a great coffee shop, with a roasting machine in the window that vented the smell of coffee down the high street, and a restaurant at first floor level with wicker furniture, which I thought very posh as a nine year old!!