Pizza Hut and Domino's Pizza are next door neighbours in Bury St Edmunds

I can't recall seeing these fierce rivals as neighbours before!

Not a sight I've seen before!

That fence should probably be BETWEEN the two units!

From Blockbuster Video to Pizza Hut to Pizza Hot

A Pizza Hot in a former Pizza Hut in a former Blockbuster Video store.

We had a look at the site of the former Blockbuster Video store in Newark-on-Trent on our trip to the town last month. There was no trace of its life as a video store.

It was interesting to note that the shop is now a pizza place called Pizza Hot. Between the time it closed as a Blockbuster and now it had also once been a Pizza Hut!

Pizza Hot in a former Pizza Hut in a former Blockbuster Video in Newark-on-Trent. You can see the Pizza Hut logo in 'ghost sign' form on the hanging sign

We wonder if this Pizza Hot is any relation to the Pizza Hot in Grantham, Lincolnshire?

Blockbuster Video

Luckily we did find a nice trace of the brand at the former Blockbuster Video in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire on the same trip.

The first Blockbuster Video store opened in Dallas, Texas, USA in 1985.

At its peak in 2004 there were more than 9,000 stores around the world. 500+ of which were in the UK.

Blockbuster ceased operations in the UK in December 2013. At the start of that year there were 528 Blockbuster locations in the UK. The number dwindled until October when only 264 shops remained. The remaining stores closed on the 16th December.

There is now just one Blockbuster Video store left open. It's in Bend, Oregon, USA.

However, the UK's high streets, shopping precincts, malls and retail parks still hold traces of the brand. And we've been to most of them!

We've now been to 27 former Blockbuster Video stores since we found the remains of the Fallowfield shop near to us in Manchester.

• Abingdon, Oxfordshire
• Ashton, Bristol
• Barnsley, South Yorkshire
• Basingstoke, Hampshire
• Billingham, Teesside
• Cheadle Hulme, Greater Manchester
• Chester, Cheshire
• Chorley, Lancashire
• Clacton-on-Sea, Essex
• Colne, Lancashire
• Fallowfield, Manchester
• Felixstowe, Suffolk
• Filton, Bristol
• Great Moor, Stockport, Greater Manchester
• Hastings, East Sussex
• Leigh, Greater Manchester
• Luton, Bedfordshire
• Marple, Greater Manchester
• Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire
• Nuneaton, Warwickshire
• Oldham, Greater Manchester
• Prescot, Lancashire
• Shanklin, Isle of Wight
• Southampton, Hampshire
• Telford, Shropshire
• Wisbech, Cambridgeshire
• Wythenshawe, Manchester

A Pizza Hut ghost sign in Ipswich

We spotted this modern day ghost sign on a former Pizza Hut restaurant at the Anglia Retail Park in Ipswich, Suffolk last month.

It is looking likely that a branch of Tim Horton's will be taking over the vacant unit in the future.