Fareham Shopping Centre
Encyclopedia
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
town of Fareham
Fareham
The market town of Fareham lies in the south east of Hampshire, England, between the cities of Southampton and Portsmouth, roughly in the centre of the South Hampshire conurbation.It gives its name to the borough comprising the town and the surrounding area...
. Built in two phases between 1975 and 1981, the centre contains many well known retailers and is quite large for a town of its size. The shopping centre is part of a wider scheme of buildings in the town centre that were constructed around the same time.
Neighbouring buildings
Neighbouring buildings include:- A large multi-storey car parkMulti-storey car parkA multi-storey car-park is a building designed specifically to be for car parking and where there are a number of floors or levels on which parking takes place...
- A health centre
- A large libraryLibraryIn a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
- A concert hall
- A tower containing the civic offices
Shops
The shopping centre was originally anchored by a Sainsbury's supermarket, WoolworthsWoolworths Group
Woolworths Group plc was a listed British company that owned the high-street retail chain, Woolworths, as well as other brands such as the entertainment distributor Entertainment UK and book and resource distributor Bertram Books...
, Boots and Marks & Spencer
Marks & Spencer
Marks and Spencer plc is a British retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London, with over 700 stores in the United Kingdom and over 300 stores spread across more than 40 countries. It specialises in the selling of clothing and luxury food products...
. The 1981 Eastern extension added a new anchor store - BHS and another multistorey car park, as well as numerous other shops. Sainsbury's moved out in the mid 1990s as the store was small by modern standards and Woolworths closed during the 2008/9 Christmas period because the retailer had gone into administration. Recent retailers to move into Fareham Shopping centre include Next (opened September 2010) and HMV (opened November 2010 - Closed in February 2011, clearly on a short term contract for the festive season) with Debenhams announcing they had signed a deal to open in Fareham Shopping Centre in Summer 2011.
Refurbishment
The shopping centre had a typical 1970s dark interior until the late 1990s when it was refurbished to become much more bright and airy. The old interior featured a trail on the floor which if followed, led in a complete circle around all parts of the centre.Atriums
It features four atriumsAtrium (architecture)
In modern architecture, an atrium is a large open space, often several stories high and having a glazed roof and/or large windows, often situated within a larger multistory building and often located immediately beyond the main entrance doors...
which all have names:
- Thackeray Square - The Northern atrium. The Boots store opens up off this square which also has Cafe Giardino in the middle.
- Delme Square - The Western atrium featuring Marks and Spencers and (formerly) Woolworths. This has a Costa Coffee in the centre
- Westbury Square - The South-Central square which connects to all the other malls in the centre. The square also has a BB's cafe in the middle.
- Osborn Square - part of the 1981 extension, this square is dominated by BHS which operates the restaurant in the square itself.
Redevelopment
The area to the North of Osborn Square is currently being redeveloped.