Bringing Whitley’s department store back to life

For many years, Bayswater was unfashionable. Despite its enviable location just north of Hyde Park, the postcode was less popular than neighbouring addresses of Notting Hill and Marylebone. But, over the last decade, a revolution has taken place.

This started with the redevelopment of Paddington Station. As well as creating attractive public spaces around the canal, new offices and residential buildings were constructed. Now Queensway is going through its own makeover, with £3 billion spent replacing the scruffy souvenir shops with a first-class high street for W2.

At the centre of this development is the landmark structure of the Whiteley. An iconic department store from the year 1911, which once claimed to be the largest shop in the world, it has been reimagined by the celebrated architects at Forster + Partners. As the new site nears completion, it offers one of the most spectacular spaces in the city, with a hotel, shopping centre, and apartments all combined into an architectural marvel.

The shop started life as a drapers on Westbourne Grove, founded in 1863 by Yorkshireman William Whitely. Over the next few years, it quickly expanded to offer dressmaking, interior decorating, and a food hall. By 1887, Whiteley’s was described as ‘an immense symposium of the arts and industries of the nation and of the world,’ employing six thousand people in total.

However, that same year, the building was wrecked by fire. This was one of the largest blazes in London’s history, visible from faraway Highgate Hill. Even though the shop was rebuilt, in the early twentieth century the business decided to move, relocating to a new location on Queensway.

The intention was to create a rival for Harrods and Selfridge’s on the northern side of Hyde Park. It was designed by John Blecher and John James Jonas in the ‘Grand Manner’ of the Edwardian Era. The result was an immense structure boasting a pillared frontage, glazed arcades, and domes and cupolas to decorate the roof.

In the 1920s, the department store extended once more, now containing both a theatre and a golf course. Whiteley’s promised potential customers that they could buy everything from ‘a pin to an elephant,’ and it was mentioned in the novels of P. G. Wodehouse as a place to shop in splendour and style.

Sadly, the building was damaged during the war. Then, in the 1950s, the Whiteley’s chairman decided the shop was too large to justify its turnover. The upper floors were turned into office space, but the shop struggled to retain customers, and in 1981 it closed down completely. Various attempts to reuse the site were short-lived, and in 2018 it was shuttered.

By this point, Bayswater had become neglected. Despite the attractive streets of stucco terraces, the neighbourhood was no longer desirable. However, in recent decades, its fortunes have revived, with a team of developers restoring the former grandeur. In the case of Queensway, this includes contemporary apartment blocks, upmarket shops and restaurants, and a beautiful gate giving access to Hyde Park.

The Whiteley is the flagship of the entire development. Because the building was Grade II listed, every effort was made to respect the original frontage. For instance, the rusted balustrades were melted down and recast following a pattern found in the first architectural drawings. This meant the original material could be preserved wherever possible.

The development already houses an Everyman Cinema, a Third Space gym and a branch of 3812, a gallery specialising in contemporary Chinese art. It also contains a Six Senses hotel, opening this summer, providing rooms, swimming pool and spa. Meanwhile, the upper storeys include spectacular apartments, including a four-bedroom property styled by Joyce Wang Studio, with 20ft high ceilings and spectacular views.

According to Marcus Meijer, one of the developers behind the neighbourhood’s revival, The Whiteley ‘provides lifestyle opportunities and experiences that do not currently exist in London.’ Or, as Patrick Campbell, a senior architect at Foster + Partners explains, ‘The Whiteley began as a wonderful theatre of retail – of experience.’ Now, he adds, it has become ‘an extraordinary new public space that draws people from the street. It is all about bringing light, landscape and people together.’