In particular we argue that claims that Bourne and Hollingworth closed simply because it was old-fashioned and out-of-touch with the new metropolitan shopping cultures and identities of the 60s and 70s both underplay the complex, multi-stranded nature of urban shopping cultures (as other relatively conservative stores were able to survive and develop),but also underplay the interactions and tensions between large shops as spaces of consumption ,as particular kinds of firm, and as distinctive forms of property asset.