Metropol

Philip wrote:Well, I was being silly on purpose, of course they're just going to call it Currys eventually.

Now you point it out though, I wasn't even thinking of Carphone Warehouse with that made up name, I was referencing the old B&Q Warehouse name (I.e. This is a huge B&Q).

Old? It's still in use.

Is it? They rebranded the one here as "B&Q Extra" several years back. Maybe there's still some stores with older signage, but are they still using the Warehouse name on new builds and refits?

I'm pretty sure they don't use it anymore. My local warehouse had that part of the signage taken down a few years ago. No new signage or anything - they just simply took down the 'Warehouse' letters.

It used to be, as far as I understood it, that normal B&Q stores had a red colour scheme on the interior and exterior, and warehouses used orange. I think they all use orange now.

I seem to remember green B&Q signage in the late 80s... what was that for.. garden centres?

Philip wrote:I'm pretty sure they don't use it anymore. My local warehouse had that part of the signage taken down a few years ago. No new signage or anything - they just simply took down the 'Warehouse' letters.

Well, mine still has it. And it looks scruffy too - a couple of the letters (the & and O) are a different shade.

Xtra-Vision in Ireland has gone into liquidation.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingne ... 17944.html

I notice the B&Q Website still lists stores as "Warehouse" and "Mini-warehouse". The Warehouse stores are the ones that are branded as "Extras" though, and the "mini-Warehouses" don't have any additional branding. They still list smaller stores as "supercentres" too even though I don't think they've used that on the outside of stores since they dropped the circular logo in the early 90s.

I've seen B&Q stores with a rainbow strip along the bottom where the Warehouse was once located.

Im surprised half the B&Q are still going, since there own Scew fix which are sometimes cheaper, while up north you have Dobbies for gardening etc

Whataday wrote:I've seen B&Q stores with a rainbow strip along the bottom where the Warehouse was once located.

I've seen that too actually - for some reason at my local, Aintree for those wondering, they never did this. Here's a screenshot from Street View taken last year. You can just make out where the fixings for the 'Warehouse' signage went.



A more recent Street View image reminds me that they've now put a banner over that space instead. (I looked for a picture from when it was still 'Warehouse' but I couldn't easily find one).

A quick search on Flickr found this unrelated but now important historical artefact, the very short-lived Best Buy in Aintree: https://www.flickr.com/photos/roblawton ... 4989233712

Unfortunately my local B&Q has changed little in the past 6 or 7 years.

Instead, here's a Street View image from late 2008 of what was my local Allied Carpets. It existed for longer than I remember, it seems.

https://goo.gl/maps/J8pUBQ4MZ692