I was brought up with Sixties’ shopping precincts and centres, they are so very dear to my heart, I spent my teenage years here in Ashton, Stalybridge, and latterly in Stockport’s Merseyway.
I’ve visited Hanley, Preston, Salford, and Coventry in search of a certain something – that exciting sweeping swoop of concrete, brick, glass and steel. Underpasses with overarching designs and luxurious layouts of leisurely interlocking levels. Each one different in a different way yet essentially similar – embodying a sense of civic pride, a sense of the future realised.
1571 – The Royal Exchange, a trading market in the City of London, is officially opened by Elizabeth I. Above the open-air piazza where dealers buy and sell commodities, there is a two-storey shopping mall, with 100 different kiosks – making it Britain’s first shopping centre.
1964 – It was a monument to provincial pride in reinforced concrete and glass. When the Duke of Edinburgh opened the Birmingham Bull Ring in May 1964, it was the largest indoor shopping centre in Europe, with a total floor area of 23 acres. Inspired by American suburban malls, the Bull Ring promised coatless shopping in an air-conditioned, temperature-controlled hall maintained at late-spring level.
2017 – Many are now no more, or redeveloped beyond recognition. The integrity of the architecture, street furniture, public art, space and usage a thing of folk memory.
So come with me now on a whirlwind picture postcard tour of this Nation’s saving grace – it’s modernist shopping spaces.
Aberdeen
Barlaston
Bedford
Bracknell
Brentwood
Brighton
Burton on Trent
Butts – Reading
Chelmsford
Corby
Coventry
Cowplain
Crawley
Crewe
Croydon
Cwmbran
Dudley
Elephant and Castle
Great Yarmouth
Hanley
Harlow
Hartlepool
Hebburn
Immingham
Irvine
Leamore
Letchworth
Leyland
Liverpool
Mexborough
Milton Keynes
Nantwich
Norris Green
Plymouth
Runcorn
Sleaford
Southampton
Stockport
Swanley
Telford
Wakefield
Walton on Thames
Westway – Frome
Wolverhampton
Worksop
modernmooch.com 
This is wonderful!!
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I was scrolling down, remembering a postcard of Telford Town Centre that I sent someone when I started working there in the 80s. I’m delighted to see that while you haven’t shown the precise one I has in mind, it’s from the same series. There was something cohesive and optimistic about the design of Telford then. It was mocked at the time, but it worked.
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