Ricemans was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 department store

Department store

A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...

 based in the city of Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....

 in Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

. It was established in the 1960s by Fred Riceman. Ricemans previously had traded in Deal Kent and had been in the town for some years. During a fire in October 1964 Ricemans Deal was burnt down and destroyed completely. (Source Shops of Deal) Fred Riceman who had bought this thriving department store decided not to reopen the store in Deal and instead reopened a new department store in Canterbury.

In 2003, the Ricemans store was closed and demolished as part of a major redevelopment in the city and subsequent rebuilding of the Whitefriars Shopping Centre

Whitefriars Shopping Centre

Whitefriars Shopping Centre is a shopping centre in Canterbury, Kent, England.-Before Whitefriars:The Whitefriars Shopping Quarter is situated on the site of the former multi-storey car park and Ricemans department store...

. Ricemans was replaced by a new Fenwick department store.

Details

Ricemans was adjoined to the Whitefriars shopping centre, which had an entrance to M&S, a sports shop with stairs up to Ricemans Café, and a Wallis store.
Ricemans peaked up to 7 floors in height and boasted the largest toy department in Canterbury, which was situated on the third floor.

There was a fire which had damaged the structure of the building in the 1960's, which was repaired, formally named 'The Great Fire of Ricemans'.

Ricemans was one of the biggest department stores in Canterbury, which sold a variety of fashion accessories, shoes, clothes, toys, home & gardenware.
At Christmas Ricemans used the basement as the focus for their Christmas decorations for many years.

During the war the area where Ricemans was sitting (Now Fenwicks) was bombed and a some time after Ricemans was constructed as a 'quick job'.

Ricemans used to stand directly facing the old Bus Station, which is now where the Next and Topshop stores are located.
Ricemans could be accessed from the main high street further down, (where McDonalds is now located) where there used to be pilot and escalators up to the other side of the Whitefriars centre, this also provided access to the delivery area of Ricemans.