Skegness Magazine

UPDATE: Today, 6th Jan, 2010, is the 1st anniversary of the closure of the Woolworths Store in Skegness!

The Skegness Lumley Road branch of Woolworths closed its doors to customers for the last time on Tuesday, 6th January, 2009, after the well-known chain store went into receivership a few weeks ago.

The closure means that the thirty staff will be without jobs.

Shutters down, staff spent their last day on the premises today, (Wednesday), clearing away the last of the shop fittings, many of which have been sold off during the final days. Many people stopped to peer into the now empty premises, expressing sentiments like “We were brought up with Woolworths” and “It’s so sad”.

The staff of our Skegness Woolworths store are to be highly commended for their sustained hard work and courteous manner during the pre-Christmas rush and the January Sales, as crowds of bargain-hungry customers jostled their way through the store. Never once did their cheery smiles and pleasant attitude flag.

A touching poem has been attached to the windows as a final “Ode to Woolworths”:-

Though Woolworths first opened in 1909 in the UK, the Skegness branch of Woolworths on Lumley Road actually opened in 1928, and the picture below shows the staff in front of the shop, not long after the doors were opened for the first time.

Below is a picture, by photojournalist Paul Gooch, of some of the Skegness Woolworths staff sponsoring the East Coast Under 9s, taken in 2006.

Please enter the password ’skegness’ to view our video of Skegness Woolworths’ Last Days.

The passing of Woolworths will leave a hole in our hearts and a hole in our town!

Tell us YOUR memories of Woolworths in Skegness in the comments box below…