Palmer family members see old store transformed

Bruce and Libby Sturrock wearing high visibility jackets, hard hats and safety glasses, standing in the former menswear department with historic stained-glass windows, bearing the initial P for Palmers, in the background.Andrew Turner/BBC

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

Andrew Turner
BBC News, Norfolk
Reporting from
Great Yarmouth

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."

Yellow enamel sign, in a wooden frame, with black text, stating: PALMERS NOTED FOR VALUE; QUOTED FOR STYLE DRAPERY OF EVERY KIND FURNITURE FOR COTTAGE OR MANSION GREAT YARMOUTH Andrew Turner/BBC

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 explains the story behind the enamel sign. It reads: Dear Bruce. We found this enamel sign at Buckenham soon after we purchased Broad Cottage and the surrounding land in February 1993. It was nailed to the back of a stable door and had clearly been there for many years. It had been used to stop the door falling to pieces and the sign itself was in rather a sad and forlorn state. A couple of Buckenham locals admitted that when young they had used it as an air gun target. This explains the pockmarks on the lettering of the word "Palmers". Although it shows some marks of age, the sign is undoubtedly handsome and stylish and still retains considerable elegance and charm - rather like its new owner! The deeds show that your grandfather, Percy Hurry Palmer, sold Broad Cottage in 1929, so the sign is at least 70 years old. It is a real pleasure to be able to return this sign to your family by giving it to you on the occasion of your 50th birthday. As you know, it was also a great kindness on the part of your parents to have sent us some photographs of Broad Cottage and Buckenham Broad as well as two sets of original plans for the restoration of Broad Cottage in the decade after the First World War. By curious coincidence, these plans were drawn by Fuff's step-grandfather, Edward Boardman, who was the pre-eminent Norfolk architect of his day. Contributed

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."

Hoardings surround the facade of the old Palmers Department Store with wooden boards behind the iron pillars, and canopy above, and brickwork with bay windows above that. A man carrying a bag is walking down the pedestrianised King Street.Andrew Turner/BBC

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."

Cast iron brackets and timber, painted in white and deep plum colour, and stained glass windows form a lantern in the former department store. Scaffolding towers have been erected in the near ground and background of the image.Andrew Turner/BBC

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

Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.

Related topics

More on this story