It is more than 30 years since Princes Quay shopping centre opened and much has changed on the high street in that time.
Many stores have come and gone, with the retail landscape constantly changing. Those changes are gathering pace faster than ever before with many high street chains struggling and Hull has, in the last few years lost big names like Debenhams and M&S from the city centre.
There is now more focus on providing more independent stores and food outlets. That is also true of Princes Quay.
But back in March 1991 when it first opened, the focus was very much on bringing in the top names. It was a time when grunge and raves were all the rage and Margaret Thatcher had only just resigned as Prime Minister. Hardly anyone had a mobile phone and internet shopping was still a few years away.
A few years ago the shopping centre went through its biggest transformation since opening. Adding to its offering were new leisure facilities such as tenpin bowling and laser blast.
On opening day, there were 94 units, a restaurant, a food court and a play centre for children.
Below are a list of all the stores that were at Princes Quay from the start. You can look through our video slideshow at the top of the story.
Harbour Deck
- Allsports
- Athena
- Colucci menswear
- County Books
- Dash clothes shop
- Leonardo’s Restaurant
- Levi’s
- Optional Extras
- Original Art Shop
- Phone-In
- Pineapple
- Rediscovered Originals record shop
- Spoils homewares
- Strand
- The Gadget Shop
- Torq jewellers
- Wayne Shoes
Kiosks:
- Information
- Popcorn
- Rawhide
- RLFC
- Squiggles ice cream parlour
Main Deck
- 4 Play record shop
- Allders
- Aquafit
- Arroya Miel ladies underwear
- Barratt Shoes
- Beaverbrooks
- Benetton
- Berry’s Jewellers
- Ciro Citerrio menswear
- Clinton Cards
- Dorothy Perkins
- Ernest Jones Ltd jewellers
- Faris Leathers
- First Sport Ltd
- Footlocker
- Fosters clothes shop
- Dixons
- Dolcis shoe shop
- Dutch Blooms - 41
- Gold House
- Microbyte
- Inventions Restaurant
- Miss Selfridge and Warehouse
- Nectar Beauty Shop
- Oaklands outdoor wear
- Olympus Sport
- Paco Sweaters
- Pavers shoe shop
- Penguin and Puffin Books
- Principles
- River Island
- Rage Shoes
- Shirts Unlimited
- The Body Shop
- The Hat Shop
- Topshop
- Wallis clothes shop
- Wendy Hall Fabrics
- Yorkshire Fudge
Upper Deck
- Courtlands Marine Walk Food Court
- Martin Dawes televisions
- Evans Ltd clothes shop
- Heinz World of Children
- Parker and Franks
- Ponden Mill textiles
- Rumbelows electrical shop
- Scholl
- Tandy electrical shop
- Topman
- Veranda Coffee Bar
- Vision Express
