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