Palmer family members see old store transformed

Bruce Sturrock, pictured his wife Libby, is from the sixth generation of the Palmer family

The sixth and final generation at a family-run department store has been given a guided tour of the building as it is converted into a library and learning campus.

Palmers of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, closed in March 2020, bringing an end to 183 years of trading.

Palmers was founded by Garwood Burton Palmer in 1837, who established a linen and drapery shop on the market place.

Bruce Sturrock, the last chairman of Palmers, toured the building with his wife Libby, and said: "I think it's absolutely brilliant."

An enamel Palmers sign, gifted to Bruce Sturrock in 1999, has been returned to the store to be put on display when it reopens as a library and learning campus

"If it can't be a store I can't think of a better use for it," he added.

"It's going to be a community hub. I like to think Palmers Department Store was the centre of Great Yarmouth town and this is going to bring the heart back to the town centre, I hope."

In 2018, Mr Sturrock, Garwood Burton Palmer's great-great nephew, sold the business to Beales, which went bust having reported poor trading at Christmas 2019.

A letter which was presented to Bruce Sturrock on his 50th birthday, accompanying the return of the enamel sign which dates back prior to 1929

Reflecting on selling the family business in 2018 to Beales, Mr Sturrock said he had hoped the deal would secure the business in the long term.

"We didn't see a way that my sister and I were going to be able to do it," he said.

"We thought a larger company like Beales would be able to maintain the future of the store and it just didn't happen that way, and I'm very, very sad about that."

Mrs Sturrock, a former midwife and partner in Palmers, said she was pleased the new university and college campus would train medical professionals and include a midwifery school.

She said: "I'm so pleased it's going to become a learning centre and I think that's very much needed, particularly for the medical students, nurses and midwifery and the adult learning.

"I was a midwife, so I'm thrilled they're going to have midwifery education. We need more midwives, we need more doctors and it's going to bring so many students in and regenerate the town.

"It's wonderful what's coming, but with the building I love that they've kept so many wonderful features."

The shop front of Palmers has been taken down and will be replaced with new entrances to the library and learning campus

Seeing how medieval walls within the building had been exposed, with historic stained glass windows restored, Mr Sturrock said: "I'm very pleased that the history is going to be maintained within the building.

"We, as a millennium project in 2000, restored this [first-floor stained glass roof lantern] and now they're going to cut the floor and have it as an atrium going down to the ground floor.

"I think that's brilliant. If we'd had £20m to spend on the store, no doubt we could have made it nice but I'm afraid we didn't have that."

The lantern inside Palmers has been redecorated, having been restored in 2000 as a Millennium Project carried out by the department store