THE HISTORY OF SHOP FRONTS IN THE UK

A shop front is like the face of your business. Shops are not any new innovation of the recent century, the history of shopfronts goes back to the time we have known trading. With time, innovation and new ideas, things change and we keep moving towards betterment and so is true with shop fronts. The style of shopping, the infrastructure of shops, and pattern and ideas of shopfronts have vastly changed.

The primary factor which remained constant during all these evolutions is competition. It will not be wrong if I mark competition as one of the major causes behind the ever-renewing trend of marketing. Everyone wants to lead the market by attracting the biggest pool of customers, and this desire and need mandate them to continuously look out for the ways of presenting their goods uniquely.

If we particularly talk about the shopfronts and market of the UK, a gradual shift was noticed during the medieval period when the shopping stalls were converted into permanent shops, begetting around forty thousand shopkeepers in Wales and England. From then, the UK market and shopfront designs have seen tremendous evolution.

Medieval Period (476-1492)

During this period, glasses were considered as a luxury product and hence, the glazed doors and windows were majorly reserved to only the rich classes. At that time, a pair of wooden shopfronts on the windows of shops was the only affordable option. These wooden shutters consisted of two parts where the upper shutter was used to secure the goods and the lower shutter was folded in order to make a table over which the products offered by the shop for sale were presented.

Georgian Period (1714-1830)

During this period, the most popular design of shopfronts included a pair of windows on either side of the central door. The windows used to be oriel and bow-fronted and the central door used to be half-glazed. While this design remained immensely popular until the late eighteenth century, the start of the nineteenth century introduced materials like steel, cast iron, and plate glass. The tall shopfronts designed using these elements were a reflection of elegance. 

Victorian Period (1837-1901)

This was the period when the UK has seen a notable urban expansion or urbanization i.e. the number of shops in the cities and towns of the UK abruptly increased. The shopfront designs during this period included a decorative ventilator of cast iron, fascia of timber or glass and tall windows. This period also witnessed the widely used sun blinds and roller shutters of timber.

Early 20th-Century Period (1900-1940)

While the 17th and 18th centuries beautified shopfronts, the early 20th century brought some striking and daring shop fronts. These Edwardian shop fronts of the early 20th century usually consisted of brass exotic brass and hardwoods. While the material of shopfronts changed during this period, the design remained almost the same as what we had in then Victorian period. The designs of this period can be best traced through the Paris Exhibition of 1925 where smooth shop fronts, striking signage, and angular windows changed the patterns of commercial architecture.