Thistles Centre
Encyclopedia
The Thistles Shopping Centre is located in Stirling
, Scotland
. The shopping centre caters for over 500 000 sq ft of retail, providing 87 units in total, since opening in 1977.
Standard Life Investments eventually bought the entire shopping centre in 1998 for £37.2 million, at least a year after the Thistles Marches phase was complete. The company paid £8 million back to the financies for their contributions.
As The Thistle Centre stands now, it has well over 500,000sq ft of retail space, its position in the heart of Stirling allows for a catchment area of over 500,000 people within 20km of the centre. It is estimated that the centre currently attracts over 12 million visitors per year, with 3.7million likely to be tourists from other countries.
See the Thistles website for Christmas trading hours. As these are subject to change.
, a 46900 sq ft (4,357.2 m²)Marks and Spencer store,Bhs and Primark
. Other stores include Zara
, River Island
, Topshop
, Game
and HMV
.
There was also a Burger King restaurant located by an entrance to the centre, however it closed suddenly and without warning in July 2008.
A List of all the stores:
The Thieves Pot is accessed within the Thistles Centre itself, located near the Port Street entrance. The Thieves Pot is identified by two 'flaming' torches on the wall, a cause visitor could mistake this for a themed bar however this is actually the entrance to the underground jail. Entering through the opening in the wall, the visitor must first travel down a wrought iron spiral staircase. As the visitor descends the feeling of entering a different time sets in, as the surroundings change from the busy shopping centre into a confined jail environment.
Admission to the Thieves Pot is free, and can be visited whenever the shopping centre is open.
Looking around a visitor will see a circular rough stone room, this is the original guardroom which existed in the walls which used to defend Stirling. The guardroom which the visitor enters into contains different artefacts; including Justice Figure and Stirling Heads which are placed as historical presentations, giving information on the room and the history of what happened there. There is also the Thieves Pot below this room, this was the prison where people would be sent as a jail. This is a dark cramped space, which is viewable through a glass floor panel and contains a model representation of a prisoner down in the prison. The entrance to this prison space would originally have been accessed through a trapdoor which would have been present where the glass viewing panel now is in the floor.
Stirling
Stirling is a city and former ancient burgh in Scotland, and is at the heart of the wider Stirling council area. The city is clustered around a large fortress and medieval old-town beside the River Forth...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. The shopping centre caters for over 500 000 sq ft of retail, providing 87 units in total, since opening in 1977.
Thistles Marches
A new phase, known as Thistle II Ltd was financed by three joint ventures being Stirling Council (49%), John Laing Property (49%) and DepFa Bank (2%). A new 970 two storey car park, 14 stance bus station, 40 new units within the new phase and the creation of 400 jobs was the focus of the plans. The Thistle Marches opened to the public in September 1997 retaining Stirling's importance as the major regional centre outwith the main cities.Standard Life Investments eventually bought the entire shopping centre in 1998 for £37.2 million, at least a year after the Thistles Marches phase was complete. The company paid £8 million back to the financies for their contributions.
As The Thistle Centre stands now, it has well over 500,000sq ft of retail space, its position in the heart of Stirling allows for a catchment area of over 500,000 people within 20km of the centre. It is estimated that the centre currently attracts over 12 million visitors per year, with 3.7million likely to be tourists from other countries.
Opening Hours
The normal opening hours for the Thistles are as follows:| Day | Open Times |
|---|---|
| Monday | 9:00am - 5:30pm |
| Tuesday | 9:00am - 5:30pm |
| Wednesday | 9:00am - 5:30pm |
| Thursday | 9:00am - 8:00pm |
| Friday | 9:00am - 5:30pm |
| Saturday | 9:00am - 6:00pm |
| Sunday | 10:00am - 6:00pm |
| Bank Holiday | 9:00am - 5:30pm |
See the Thistles website for Christmas trading hours. As these are subject to change.
Current Stores
The anchor stores are DebenhamsDebenhams
Debenhams plc is a British retailer operating under a department store format in the UK, Ireland and Denmark, and franchise stores in other countries. The Company was founded in the eighteenth century as a single store in London and has now grown to around 160 shops...
, a 46900 sq ft (4,357.2 m²)Marks and Spencer store,Bhs and Primark
Primark
Primark is a clothing retailer, operating over 223 stores in Ireland , the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Belgium...
. Other stores include Zara
Zara (clothing)
Zara is a Spanish clothing and accessories retailer based in Arteixo, Galicia, and founded in 1975 by Amancio Ortega and Rosalía Mera. It is the flagship chain store of the Inditex group; the fashion group also owns brands such as Massimo Dutti, Pull and Bear, Oysho, Uterqüe, Stradivarius and...
, River Island
River Island
River Island is one of Britain's best known high street fashion brands and can be found in most cities across the UK. The brand also has stores in Singapore, Turkey, Poland, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the Middle East.-History:...
, Topshop
Topshop
Topshop is a British clothes retailer with shops in over 20 countries and online operations in a number of its markets. Its sales come primarily from women's clothing and fashion accessories...
, Game
GAME (retailer)
The Game Group plc is a British video games retail company. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index....
and HMV
HMV
His Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...
.
There was also a Burger King restaurant located by an entrance to the centre, however it closed suddenly and without warning in July 2008.
A List of all the stores:
| Store Names | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Store | Ann Summers Ann Summers Ann Summers is a United Kingdom-based retailer specialising in sex toys and lingerie, with over 140 high street stores in the UK, Ireland, the Channel Islands and Spain. In 2000, Ann Summers acquired the Knickerbox brand, a label with an emphasis on more comfortable and feminine underwear, while... |
Art@Home | Beaverbrooks | BHS | Bodycare | Boots | Burton | Card Factory | Carphone Warehouse | |
| CC | Celtic Store | Charity Shop | Chisholm Hunter | Claire’s Accessories | Clarks | Clinton Cards | Costa Coffee | d2 | Debenhams | |
| Dorothy Perkins Dorothy Perkins Dorothy Perkins, whose trading name was inspired by a rambler rose of the same name, is a large British women's clothing retailer, active mostly in the United Kingdom.- History :... |
Ernest Jones Ernest Jones Alfred Ernest Jones was a British neurologist and psychoanalyst, and Sigmund Freud’s official biographer. Jones was the first English-speaking practitioner of psychoanalysis and became its leading exponent in the English-speaking world where, as President of both the British Psycho-Analytical... |
Evans Evans (clothing retailer) Evans is a women's clothing retailer located in the United Kingdom and Ireland. They have over 300 stores around the UK selling plus-size clothing, lingerie, wide fitting shoes, swimwear and accessories.- Timeline :... |
Fat Face | First Sport | Fraser Hart | Fuel Juice Bar | Game Game A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements... |
Garage | Going Places | |
| Gold375 | Goldsmiths | Greggs | H Samuel | Hawkin's Bazaar | H & M | HMV | Holland & Barrett | Internacionale | JD Sports | JJB |
| Kiddie Kouture | La Senza | Les Cygnes | Lush | M&S | Marches Restaurant | Mathiesons Bakers | Millie's Cookies | Mountain Warehouse | Next | |
| O2 | Oasis | Optical Express | Orange | Ortak | Parchment | Peacocks | Phones 4 U | Poundland | Primark | |
| Quiz | Republic | River Island | Savers | Schuh | Sports World | Superdrug | T-Mobile T-Mobile T-Mobile International AG is a German-based holding company for Deutsche Telekom AG's various mobile communications subsidiaries outside Germany. Based in Bonn, Germany, its subsidiaries operate GSM and UMTS-based cellular networks in Europe, the United States, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands... |
The Discovery Store | The Officers Club | |
| The Perfume Shop | The Point Too | Thorntons | Tie Rack | Top Man | Top Shop | Trade Secret | Trespass | USC | Vision Express Vision Express Vision Express is one of the four major opticians that control 70% of the British market for spectacles and contact lenses.The company opened its first store in 1988 at the MetroCentre. After buying out LensCrafters' UK base, they further increased their number of stores. They had over 220 stores... |
|
| Vodafone Vodafone Vodafone Group Plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers , with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of... |
Wallis Wallis (retailer) Wallis is a British women's clothing retailer. The brand operates from 134 stores and 126 concessions across the UK and Republic of Ireland. Wallis is a subsidiary of the Arcadia Group and one of the many companies under ownership of Philip Green, a British retailing icon.-History:The first store... |
Warehouse | Waterstones | WHSmith | Zara Zara (clothing) Zara is a Spanish clothing and accessories retailer based in Arteixo, Galicia, and founded in 1975 by Amancio Ortega and Rosalía Mera. It is the flagship chain store of the Inditex group; the fashion group also owns brands such as Massimo Dutti, Pull and Bear, Oysho, Uterqüe, Stradivarius and... |
|||||
Thieves Pot
The Thistles Shopping Centre is the only one in the world to have a replica 16th century jail with an extensive history of the Bastion's. The jail is of historical importance in Stirling, being used at one time to guard an angle of Stirling's Town Wall.The Thieves Pot is accessed within the Thistles Centre itself, located near the Port Street entrance. The Thieves Pot is identified by two 'flaming' torches on the wall, a cause visitor could mistake this for a themed bar however this is actually the entrance to the underground jail. Entering through the opening in the wall, the visitor must first travel down a wrought iron spiral staircase. As the visitor descends the feeling of entering a different time sets in, as the surroundings change from the busy shopping centre into a confined jail environment.
Admission to the Thieves Pot is free, and can be visited whenever the shopping centre is open.
Looking around a visitor will see a circular rough stone room, this is the original guardroom which existed in the walls which used to defend Stirling. The guardroom which the visitor enters into contains different artefacts; including Justice Figure and Stirling Heads which are placed as historical presentations, giving information on the room and the history of what happened there. There is also the Thieves Pot below this room, this was the prison where people would be sent as a jail. This is a dark cramped space, which is viewable through a glass floor panel and contains a model representation of a prisoner down in the prison. The entrance to this prison space would originally have been accessed through a trapdoor which would have been present where the glass viewing panel now is in the floor.
Events that have or will take place in the Thistles
- The single 'The Haggis' went on sale in the Thistle Center's HMV store on March 23rd 2009. This was a single created by a music teacher at Alva Academy and was designed in aid of Comic Relief. The most notable sight during this sale of the album was a large Haggis suit walking around the center and also serving customers in HMV. Due to this event being run, the single managed to top the Scottish Indie Charts, raising £3375.79 in the process.
- Santa has taken up his spot in the heart of the Thistles Centre again, every year Santa's Grotto gets set up within the centre, Santa and his elves greet and meet little children, giving them the chance to talk with Santa and tell him what they would like for Christmas. Having gone to Santa's Grotto, the children get a memento photograph taken with Santa and also receive a Christmas gift.
- The Thistles was featured on STV's 'The Hour' show in September 2009. Stella Bartram the show's fitness guru, appeared in the centre where the cleaning, janitorial and security staff were in for a shock. The staff were drawn into a fake meeting, where Stella appeared and got to work showing the staff different exercises they could do during their working day. These ranged from lunges, squats and figure of eight mop exercises. The staff initially said they were fit considering that in a days work they would have walked 11miles, however when they started doing the exercises laid out by Stella, they soon discovered muscles they hadn't been feeling before.
- On January 18th 2010, recycling bins were introduced throughout the centre. They were unveiled by the centre's local mascots: Thistle, Cash For Kids, Keep Scotland Beautiful, Bowling Alley, Blairdrummond Safari Park and macrobert Arts Centre.There are bins for customers to deposit paper, plastic, cans and general waste in to. According to the Marketing Manager at The Thistles, Geraldine El Masrour, the primary goal of the initiative was to reduce the Carbon Footprint and encourage the city of Stirling to follow.