House of Holland, Grimsby
Logo date: unknown; company administration late-1980s
Until demolition began just last month, Grimsby’s ex-House of Holland store was a local landmark for years, lying derelict on the junction of Kent Street and Freeman Street since the late 1980s. Redevelopment of the area saw it knocked down to be turned into office blocks but I managed to get a friend to grab some photos before the bulldozers moved in.
Very little information about the chain exists online bar mentions in a few forums but from my understanding the firm went into administration in the late-1980s (possibly 1987?). HoH was a catalogue based discount furniture and lifestyle store often with large premises, sometimes occupying multiple floors in a building, like a mini-department store. Unlike other purely catalogue businesses it was possible to actually view many of the products in branch. This photo of the Brighton branch shows its grandeur in certain locations.
Before House of Holland this Grimsby building was occupied by Tesco, who relocated in the early 1980s, leading to local discount store Mad Harry’s moving in in November of 1983. Within eighteen months they’d themselves relocated to Grimsby’s former Woolworths store in a slightly more central location on Freeman Street, leading to House of Holland occupying the building not long after.
These days House of Holland is a fashion brand used by designer Henry Holland which makes searching for information on the former 1980s homewares chain very difficult... there’s only disparate and undetailed allusions online eg. this reference in a 1978 article from the Financial Times about the stocking of utility heaters in UK stores, the opening of a store in Cambridge in 1985 and this list of stores in Southend.
Pictures via @tweetradioross on Twitter, January 2019
