Robert Sayle
Cambridge's long-running department store on St Andrew's Street, founded in 1840 and trading under its own name until 2004.
Robert Sayle was a department store on St Andrew's Street, Cambridge. It began in 1840 and traded under the founder's name for the next 164 years.
A draper's shop that grew
Robert Sayle (1816-1883) came from Southery in Norfolk, where his father farmed. He learned the drapery trade in London before returning to Cambridge in 1840 and opening a shop at Victoria House on St Andrew's Street, with his father's help. Early stock included Irish linen, hosiery, furs, shawls and ribbons, and the shop made a splash with plate-glass windows for displaying goods. After the founder died, the business stayed private under a trio of partners, and it kept absorbing neighbouring premises until the store reached number 17 by 1888.
New owners
Selfridges bought the firm in 1934. Five years later, when Selfridges sold off its provincial stores, the John Lewis Partnership took over. In 1941 John Lewis relabelled another of its acquisitions, Thompsons of Peterborough, as a Robert Sayle store; that branch burned down in 1956 and was not reopened.
The end of the name
In 2004 the Cambridge store moved to temporary premises on Burleigh Street so the St Andrew's Street site could be cleared for a new shopping development, the Grand Arcade. The original street front was kept as part of the new development. Grand Arcade welcomed shoppers that November of 2007, anchored by a new John Lewis, and the staff-owners chose to drop the Robert Sayle name.
Nearby
Within a few minutes' walk
