Lewis's department store

Lewis’s was a much-loved department store on Renshaw Street. On Saturday 3 May 1941 the store was hit by a small bomb which damaged the sprinkler system. The bombs that continued to hit caused a massive fire which resulted in three-fifths of the store being destroyed. On Monday 5 May Lewis’s Bank opened in temporary accommodation at the Bon Marché on Church Street and by the end of the month the surviving two-fifths of the store was transformed into an emergency shop. The store was eventually redesigned in 1947 but it would take another ten years to make up for the damage done on one night’s air raid when the building was finally finished in 1957.