Barr Gazetas has completed a project that could become a model for how to breathe new life into abandoned department stores.

It comes as House of Fraser and Debenhams announced plans to shut dozens of their premises, in a decision that will leave gaping holes in high streets up and down the country.

Barr Gazetas has restored and repurposed Tower House in Lewisham, the Royal Arsenal Cooperative Society’s flagship department store which opened in 1933. It shut in 1985 and has had chequered history ever since. It stands on a major road but also in the centre of Lewisham, opposite the clock tower and beside the Met Police’s biggest stables.

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