Having been open for more than two decades, many cannot remember a time before Bristol's biggest shopping centre existed. Taking two years to build, The Mall at Cribbs Causeway officially opened on March 31, 1998.
It featured more than a hundred different stores, with its two anchor tenants Marks and Spencer and John Lewis having their own specially-designed wings of the building. While many companies have either closed or moved on from their place at The Mall, the centre still attracts numerous high street chains with the aforementioned anchor tenants still going strong.
The £235million out-of-town shopping centre prompted widespread objections when the idea was first floated in the 1980s, and Bristol’s worst fears were confirmed when department store John Lewis moved it’s Broadmead shop to Cribbs Causeway.
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Work began on The Mall in 1996 with some 5,500 workers were involved in the construction with half a million tonnes of earth moved for the project and 7,500 tonnes of steel used for the structure. Three miles of new roads and seven new roundabouts were also built to handle the thousands of shoppers expected to descend on the shopping centre each day.
Alongside the two major stores, the centre included 135 high street shops, 7,000 free car parking spaces, palm trees from Florida and a central fountain with 80 different displays. It created more than 3,500 jobs.
On March 31, 1998, the ribbon was cut at exactly 10am by nine-year-old schoolgirl Charlotte Bennett. More than 3,500 visitors entered the shopping centre in the first five minutes and by lunchtime 40,000 shoppers had been recorded.
There have been a lot of changes since with expansions and stores coming and going but take a look back at its opening and first few years in business in north Bristol.
This article was first published in 2019 and was republished for December 2024.
