There is a reason that I have devoted half of one of my seven days in London to Harrods...it is huge! Not only is it the biggest department store in Europe, it is the most well known! Although some things at Harrods can be expensive, it is worth just going there to look around, even though you may not have the money to buy a lot of things. I am also looking forward to going to their famous food hall. I have been advised that the food hall is second to Borough Market as a chef's haven. No matter what you are looking for, Harrods probably has it. Although the original story of Harrods goes back to 1834, it wasn't until 1849 when it came to its current location on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, South Kensington. The owner Charles Henry Harrod, had operated a few stores around London before taking over a small shop on Brompton Road, where the store now stands. Beginning in a single room employing two assistants and a messenger boy, Harrod's son Charles Digby Harrod built the business into a thriving retail operation selling medicines, perfumes, stationery, fruit and vegetables. Harrods rapidly expanded, acquired the adjoining buildings, and employed one hundred people by 1880. However, the store's booming fortunes were reversed in early December 1883, when it burnt to the ground. Remarkably, in view of this calamity, Charles Harrod fulfilled all of his commitments to his customers to make Christmas deliveries that year—and made a record profit in the process. In short order, a new building was built on the same site, and soon Harrods extended credit for the first time to its best customers, among them Oscar Wilde, Lillie Langtry, Ellen Terry, Charlie Chaplin, Noël Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, Sigmund Freud, A. A. Milne, and many members of the British Royal Family. On Wednesday, 16 November 1898, Harrods debuted England's first "moving staircase" (escalator) in their Brompton Road stores; the device was actually a woven leather conveyor belt-like unit with a mahogany and "silver plate-glass" balustrade. Nervous customers were offered brandy at the top to revive them after their 'ordeal'. The department store was purchased by the Fayed brothers in 1985. In 2010, Harrod's owner Mohamed al Fayed, sold the store for £1.5 billion to Qatar Holdings, the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar. Two weeks prior to that Fayed had stated "People approach us from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar. Fair enough. But I put two fingers up to them. It is not for sale. This is not Marks and Spencer or Sainsbury's. It is a special place that gives people pleasure. There is only one Mecca." He later stated in an interview he wanted his "legacy and traditions that he has built up into Harrods would be continued." Harrods was a former Royal Warrant Holder. It has held Royal Warrants since 1910. The recent ones were as follows:
In 2000, the Royal Warrant for the Duke of Edinburgh was removed and Mohamed al Fayed had the others taken down and burned. He proclaimed that the warrants were a curse. He then on went to state that business had doubled since removing the warrants. Most may know, Mohamed al Fayed's son Dodi Fayed was killed along with Diana, Princess of Wales in a Paris car crash on August 31, 1997. A memorial shrine now rests in the store between two of the Egyptian Escalators. The shop's 330 departments offer a wide range of products and services. Products on offer include clothing for women, men, children and infants, electronics, jewellery, sporting gear, bridal trousseau, pets and pet accessories, toys, food and drink, health and beauty items, packaged gifts, stationery, housewares, home appliances, furniture, and much more. A representative sample of shop services includes 32 restaurants, serving everything from high tea to tapas to pub food to haute cuisine; a personal shopping-assistance program known as "By Appointment"; a watch repair service; a tailor; a dispensing pharmacy; a beauty spa and salon; a barbers shop; Harrods Financial Services; Harrods Bank; Ella Jade Bathroom Planning and Design Service; private events planning and catering; food delivery; a wine steward; bespoke "picnic" hampers and gift boxes; bespoke cakes; bespoke fragrance formulations; and Bespoke Arcades machines. Up to 300,000 customers visit the shop on peak days, comprising the highest proportion of customers from non-English speaking countries of any department store in London. More than five thousand staff from over fifty different countries work at Harrods. Opening Times
Please refer to the "Visiting the Store" section of the official website. There are different opening and closing times throughout the year. For more info about the store including current times, store guides, departments, or even online shopping, click on the official site for Harrods below! Cheers!
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