Former Blockbuster Video stores

A look at some lost Blockbuster Video stores.

Since first spotting the remains of the former Blockbuster Video store in Fallowfield, Manchester in October 2019 we've been on the lookout for other remnants of the brand. Sometimes we've been lucky and found an old QuikDrop box or piece of signage and on occasion we've been really lucky and seen full shopfronts and branding left inside stores.

However, on some occasions we haven't been as fortunate. That's been the case when visiting Chorley, Telford, Abingdon, Great Moor and Wythenshawe.

Former Blockbuster Video Store - Chorley Retail Park in Chorley, Lancashire (August 2020)

Now a restaurant and takeaway

Former Blockbuster Video Store - Rampart Way, Telford, Shropshire (September 2020)

This was a large store

The last remnants of Blockbuster in Telford

Former Blockbuster Video Store - Peachcroft, Abingdon, Oxfordshire (November 2020)

This was my local Blockbuster video shop when I was growing up

Former Blockbuster Video Store - Buxton Road, Great Moor, Stockport (March 2021)

At least this former store is still blue and yellow

Former Blockbuster Video Store - Rowlands Way, Wythenshawe, Manchester (April 2021)

Another tile shop

To date we've been to former Blockbuster stores in:

• Fallowfield, Manchester
• Colne, Lancashire
• Chester, Cheshire
• Felixstowe, Suffolk
• Hastings, East Sussex
• Cheadle Hulme, Greater Manchester
• Marple, Greater Manchester
• Oldham, Greater Manchester
• Prescot, Lancashire
• Telford, Shropshire
• Chorley, Lancashire
• Great Moor, Stockport, Greater Manchester
• Abingdon, Oxfordshire
• Barnsley, South Yorkshire
• Leigh, Greater Manchester
• Wythenshawe, Manchester
• Billingham, Teesside

The former British Home Stores in Stockport

While having a walk round Stockport yesterday evening it was amazing to see the old ghost sign on the rear of the store had been uncovered!

The old BHS shop in the Merseyway shopping centre in Stockport was a Poundland, but that store closed last month.

BHS became defunct in August 2016, but there are still traces of the brand if you know where to look.

As well as the newly uncovered ghost sign you can see name as part of the mural artwork along the side of the store as well as on two small signs in the doorways where the fireman's switches are.

New Adventure Golf course at Jump Heaven in Stockport

A new adventure golf course is being built at Jump Heaven in Hazel Grove, Stockport.

Jump Heaven in Hazel Grove is opening a new adventure golf course.

The layout is being built by the team at Adventure Golf Solutions.

It'll be a very local course for us to play on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

Jump Heaven on Pepper Road in Hazel Grove was the UK's first trampoline, Ninja Warrior, Parkour and Total Wipeout arena.

Visit the Jump Heaven website for more information.

NO GOLF in Torkington Park, Hazel Grove, Stockport

NO GOLF allowed at Torkington Park, Hazel Grove, Stockport.

The Inbetweeners in Cheadle

Spotted in Cheadle.

Cheadle Car Sales has got an Inbetweeners car parked up in Cheadle.

We spotted the Cheadle Car Sales Only Fools & Horses van last month.

The last train

I last travelled on a train a year ago today!

A train at Stockport railway station on the 11th March 2020

The journey was a short one - from Stockport to Manchester Piccadilly and back - as I was heading into town for the Marketing Show North at the Digital City Expo at Manchester Central. That was the last event I attended before the coronavirus pandemic lockdown.

I wonder where my next train journey will take take me and when it'll be?

My last pre-pandemic games of dodgeball

I played my last pre-coronavirus pandemic lockdown games of dodgeball a year ago today.

In my last Tuesday night session with the Cheadle & Gatley Griffins Dodgeball Club I played 5, won 4 and lost 1.

I'm really looking forward to returning to dodgeball action when it's once again safe to do so.

My 2020 record stood at 18 games played with 9 wins and 9 losses.

My all-time Dodgeball Win-Loss Record (2005-2020) stands at 987 games played, 451 wins, 492 losses and 44 tied games.

Lost shops - Sainsbury's on Warren Street in Stockport town centre

A look at Sainsbury's on Warren Street in Stockport town centre.

Now a lost shop.

It closed on the 31st January this year.

Only Cars and Commercials

We spotted this amazing van on our daily walk in Cheadle on Saturday!

I'd literally just said to Emily that I hadn't seen anything fun to photograph recently as we've been locked down in the borough.

Only Fools and Horses is a pop culture icon that has been ripe for bootlegging and parodies over the years.

It's crazy how many Reliant Regal Supervans we've seen on our minigolf travels.

Elsewhere in Stockport you can see a hearse from a business called Shed's Household Independent Traders.

Shawfield Line Marking Specialists Ltd. is another business that operates in Stockport and some less exotic locations like London, Paris and New York.

If you're in Blackpool you can visit Lester's Independent Trading Co.

Lost shops - Debenhams in Stockport town centre

A look at Debenhams in Stockport town centre. Now a lost shop.

London, Paris, New York but mostly Stockport

Shawfield Line Marking Specialists Ltd. is a business that operates in Stockport and some less exotic locations like London, Paris and New York.

Bruntwood Park Pitch & Putt in Cheadle

Our first miniature golf course visit of the year.

We had a walk round Bruntwood Park in Cheadle on New Year's Day and while there took a look at the Pitch & Putt course.

Rules for the time of Covid

A view to the 7th tee

A frosty bunker

An icy green

The layout was the second miniature golf course we visited, and 695th overall on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour, when we moved to Cheadle Hulme back in 2016.

Visit the Bruntwood Park Pitch & Putt website for more information.

Social distancing minigolf

The Bruntwood Park Pitch & Putt course was the first place saw social distancing measures in place in person. That was in May last year.

A look back at 2020

The last course we swung by in 2020 was the grass Putting course at Park Square in Cheadle Heath on the 29th December.

Before the first national lockdown hit and our out-of-home putting was paused we'd visited 948 courses since September 2006.

We had a very strong start to the year and visited 20 courses in the first 20 days of 2020.

We were still able to visit a total of 46 courses in 2020, including revisits. 15 of them were new layouts to us. We've been able to visit eight courses during the pandemic (March to December 2020), playing two of them.

We've now been to a total of 956 courses on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

Leisure Orienteering at Bruntwood Park in Cheadle

While having a walk round Bruntwood Park in Cheadle on New Year's Day we spotted this nice old sign for Leisure Orienteering at the park.

The sign is at the Pitch & Putt kiosk in the park

It's one of the few remaining signs in the borough that carries the old council logo. We've seen others near the Stockport Pyramid, at Woodford Recreation Ground and on Adswood Road.

The logo for Stockport Leisure Services

Park Square Putting Green in Cheadle Heath

A look at the snowy Park Square Putting Green in Cheadle Heath.

Unplayable

The Putting Green at the Park Square offices in Cheadle Heath was the first miniature golf course we visited this year.

Merry Christmas from Stockport

Merry Christmas to everyone from us here in sunny Stockport.

We're not sending any real cards this year as last year we posted out a hundred special Christmas minigolf postcards and only 5 arrived at their destination, and 2 of them were half destroyed, as the post box we put them in suffered some sort of incident.

The Arden Arms in Bredbury, Stockport

Erratum - we missed a pub on our lockdown pub crawl of Stockport Borough.

We visited 265 pubs, bars and clubs during the national lockdown between April and July of this year. Some of those places were long established, others were new venues, a few were getting ready to open for the first time in 2020, while a number of others were lost pubs.

One of the pubs we missed during the first lockdown was the Arden Arms at Bredbury!

The Arden Arms in Bredbury

We knew there was an Arden Arms in the town centre (pub #51), but as the Bredbury location is right on the border with Denton in Tameside it completely slipped off our radar.

The sign of pub #266 on our travels 

We rectified the matter on Saturday though as we took our day's outdoor exercise at Hulmes Wood and walked back across the border into Stockport to snap the Arden Arms.

Approaching Stockport from Tameside

Right on the border

Looking back towards Tameside

Related blog posts:

- Pubs of Stockport

- Pubs

- Stockport

- Lockdown

- Stopfordian Pubs

Budgens of Woodford

A look at the Budgens supermarket in Woodford, Stockport.

You don't often see Budgens supermarkets these days. Although I did spot this one in a nice historic building in Sheffield recently.

This is the only Budgens in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport.

Budgens was founded by John Budgen in 1872.

The company is now a subsidiary of Booker Group, part of Tesco plc.

Pubs of Stockport

Check out the interview in The Viaduct magazine about our mission to visit every pub, club and bar in Stockport during lockdown this year.

The first pub we visited - The Kings Tap in Cheadle Hulme

Pub number 73 - The Crown Inn in Stockport town centre with the viaduct behind it

Pub number 265 - The Nursery Inn in Heaton Norris

A-Team Cleaning Services in Manchester

Spotting an 'A-Team van' in Stockport.

I always keep an eye out for fun and interesting stuff and managed to get a snap of this 'A-Team van' out on a mission somewhere in the Greater Manchester underground earlier today!

Check out the A-Team Cleaning Services Facebook Page for more information.

It's not the first A-Team van I've seen on my travels. Check out the Multi Kitchens Ltd van, The Waste Team and The Natural Tile Company in Belfast.

A postcard from Stockport

Dropping you a line from the Greater Manchester High Risk Coronavirus Protection Area Lockdown Zone.