Jenners was 'Harrods of the North' but leg it from the trouser section

Oddly enough, my old Mum and her two lifelong friends used to go to Jenners every month for tea and scones, and they were all lower class. I’m sure they were led by “Auntie” May, a gallus lass.

The opulent store, on a corner of Princes Street across from yon Scott Monument, was famously ornate, a proper emporium with many departments including … a haberdashery. Swoon!  Its central feature was a three-storey atrium where, every year, a huge Christmas tree was erected.

It was a shopping cathedral, with nooks and also crannies (sine qua non of any proper shop). Despite that, for me it had a sepulchral feel and, except at Christmas, was never as cheerily lit as Markies or Lewis, J.

Architecturally, it features, in the words of Historic Environment Scotland, a tower culminating in flying buttresses and oculi, ashlar mullions and arched windows “set in swan-neck pedimented aedicules”. I see.

Around the famous golden sign, caryatids – some with hardly any claes on – sit neatly in niches. These were included, at Charles Jenner’s insistence, “to show symbolically that women are the support of the house”. I hear ya.

Flaming expensive

Jenners was founded as “Kennington & Jenner” in 1838 by a right couple of Charlies: the aforementioned Charles Jenner, a linen draper, and Charles Kennington. The original structure, consisting of converted houses, was destroyed by fire in 1892, with the loss of goods valued at quarter of a million pounds.

In 1893, Scottish architect William Hamilton Beattie designed a replacement in early Renaissance Revival style. Opening in 1895, the new store featured technical innovations such as electric lighting and hydraulic lifts. It was extended in 1903. Further extensions were added in the 1950s and 1960s, and it’s now a category A listed building. It has held a Royal Warrant since 1911, and was visited by Queen Elizabeth on its 150th anniversary in 1988.

Jenners was run for many years by the Douglas Miller family, descendants of James Kennedy, who took charge of the store after Charles Jenner retired in 1881.

In 2005, the family confirmed negotiations to sell the retail business to the House of Fraser (which already had a department store – now gone – at the other end of Princes Street) for an estimated £100–200 million. A month later, it was sold for £46.1 million. Cheapskates.

Fraser diluted its distinctiveness, centralising stock control, and turning over more and more space to concessions. When House of Fraser, by now Chinese owned, fell into administration, Mike Ashley’s lumpen-proletarian Sports Direct took over.

The building itself was then bought in 2017 by that Anders Holch Povlsen, the world’s richest Dane and Scotland’s biggest landowner, for a reported £53m. He was said to have a “passion for its architecture and history”.

In December 2020, Jenners as a retail concern was closed with the loss of 200 jobs. However, Povlsen has declared his dream to reopen the joint as a department store, with a 96-room boutique hotel – keep your eyes open on airbnb for that one, folks – on the upper floors of the six-storey building, along with a café, bars and restaurant spaces.

The most recent Jenners fire

Rose once again

Earlier this month, the final, three-year phase of work to bring the building back to life began. A massive amount of material, including 300 tonnes of metal, has been removed by hand, dropped down a lift shaft before being pushed through a large window on to Rose Street.

All the old Victorian wiring and asbestos has been taken out. The famous atrium is being restored. The directors’ boardroom will be turned into a luxury suite overlooking Princes Street and The Mound.

Another part of the hotel – the Tower Suite – will span two floors and will include a bedroom with round windows looking out to the Scott Monument.

There will also be a private rooftop terrace, from which one imagines liquids and soft cakes might be dropped for amusement on the proles below, and the back of the building will have a rooftop bar overlooking St Andrew Square. The hotel entrance will also be at the back, on Rose Street, while the store entrances will remain on Princes Street and South St David Street.

The Victorian facade will be restored, while the 1966 extension facing onto Princes Street will receive a new front, “which respects the older sections of the Jenners building”.

During the demolition phase workers uncovered an ornate lift cage – in what turned out be one of the earliest lifts in Britain – behind plasterboard. Parquet flooring dating back to 1895 was also found and will be restored.

Tragic death

Last year, the restoration was marked by tragedy when firefighter Barry Martin, 38, died tackling a blaze that broke out in two rooms of what used to be the menswear department.

More than 100 firefighters and 22 fire appliances attended the "serious and complex fire”, which damaged 2,600 sq ft of the store’s  total 193,000 sq ft. A memorial to Mr Martin will be erected in the building during the refit. Two other firefighters were treated in hospital for smoke inhalation and two for burns. A police officer also received treatment.

Last year, Urbandoned, a small group of, er, civic explorers, gained entry to the building, and made a video of the interior, showing stripped floors, historic signage, stained glass windows and ornate features.

Without a doubt, the reopening of Jenners will be a big deal for Scotland’s snooty capital. Personally, I do not care for the new hotel space, unless the rich denizens therein choose to rain sterling notes of large denomination down upon the peasantry below, among whom I might then be persuaded to foregather.

Thus enriched, I cannot imagine I will be persuaded to visit the trousers section. However, I would be intrigued to find out if the store will be stocking any interesting and amusing tea caddies again.