M&S at forefront of consumer revolution

It's been a long journey since the time they'd sell you a nutmeg grater for a penny from a shop in the Upper Arcade ... Eugene Byrne, our man at the self-checkout with the Best Ever prawn sandwich and two dozen double chocolate muffins, welcomes the return of Marks & Spencer to the middle of Bristol.

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The Castle Street shop, opened in the 1920s and lost in the Blitz

THE opening of the new Cabot Circus Marks & Spencer store last week got the local media all excited. The Post website had its reporter there when the doors opened and livestreamed the ribbon cutting and the happy throngs rushing in.

This is a high-profile and high-stakes initiative for the firm, a flagship store in what was formerly the House of Fraser site, and part of a £300m national strategy to adapt to our changing shopping habits.

The firm says it's one of 16 stores opening across the UK, and follows on the closure of a number of other outlets, not least the one in Broadmead, which used to be just a few hundred yards down the road, and which closed in January 2022.

It's now Sparks (sparksbristol. co.uk) a "department store" for local creatives, arts, crafts, exhibitions and live events.

But now M&S is back, with three floors of food, fashions, home and beauty products and a large coffee shop. It means that the firm can trace an almost-continuous history of trading in this part of Bristol of more than 125 years, with the recent hiatus of almost five years being just a blip.

The Christmas rush at Broadmead M&S in the 1990s, back when people had to pay a shop assistant