The Shires
Encyclopedia
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
, England. It was opened as The Shires in 1991 to supplement the ageing and run-down Haymarket Shopping Centre, also since re-developed. It was built on a central location within the city centre on Eastgates and High Street. Frontages of buildings that were demolished were retained and new external construction was in a mock-olde style. An extension opened in 1994, with a frontage on to Church Gate. A further large extension opened in 2008, when the entire centre was renamed Highcross Leicester.
Highcross Leicester contains over 120 shops, with a range of both large and smaller units, including branches of the department stores House of Fraser
House of Fraser
House of Fraser is a British department store group with over 60 stores across the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was established in Glasgow, Scotland in 1849 as Arthur and Fraser. By 1891 it was known as Fraser & Sons. The company grew steadily during the early 20th century, but after the Second...
, Debenhams
Debenhams
Debenhams plc is a British retailer operating under a department store format in the UK, Ireland and Denmark, and franchise stores in other countries. The Company was founded in the eighteenth century as a single store in London and has now grown to around 160 shops...
and John Lewis
John Lewis Partnership
The John Lewis Partnership is an employee-owned UK partnership which operates John Lewis department stores, Waitrose supermarkets and a number of other services...
. There are also 15 restaurants and cafés, a cinema and two large car parks.
The Shires becomes Highcross Leicester
The most recent extension, known as Shires West during the planning and early construction phases, doubles the retail space available. This extension lies between the former Shires and the inner ring-roadA594 road (Leicester)
The Leicester version of the A594 is that city's inner ring road, surrounding the core area of Leicester City Centre. Leicester has two other ring-roads, the A6030, and the A563....
. It includes a John Lewis department store, the first in Leicester, and a Cinema de Lux
Cinema de Lux
Cinema de Lux is a chain of cinemas in the United States and the United Kingdom, owned by Showcase Cinemas, which in turn is owned by National Amusements. Cinema de Lux aims to be more upmarket and luxurious than Showcase.-History:...
, the only multiplex cinema in the city centre. There are also two new public squares, residential apartments, a bus interchange
Bus stop
A bus stop is a designated place where buses stop for passengers to board or leave a bus. These are normally positioned on the highway and are distinct from off-highway facilities such as bus stations. The construction of bus stops tends to reflect the level of usage...
and a further 2000-space car park on the opposite side of the ring road, linked by a glass footbridge, which replaces one of the earlier Shires car parks that was demolished to make way for the new extension. Other new tenants include designer fashion brands G-star, Lacoste, Hugo Boss
Hugo Boss
Hugo Ferdinand Boss was the founder of clothing company Hugo Boss.-Early life:Boss was born in Metzingen, Germany. After completing his apprenticeship and one year of employment, he founded his own company in Metzingen in 1923.-Support of Nazism:Boss joined the Nazi Party in 1931, two years before...
and Zara
Zara (clothing)
Zara is a Spanish clothing and accessories retailer based in Arteixo, Galicia, and founded in 1975 by Amancio Ortega and Rosalía Mera. It is the flagship chain store of the Inditex group; the fashion group also owns brands such as Massimo Dutti, Pull and Bear, Oysho, Uterqüe, Stradivarius and...
, and there is also an Apple Store . Thirteen new restaurants and cafés signed up to open in the new centre.
The extension makes Highcross Leicester the largest shopping centre in the East Midlands
East Midlands
The East Midlands is one of the regions of England, consisting of most of the eastern half of the traditional region of the Midlands. It encompasses the combined area of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire and most of Lincolnshire...
.
The multiplex cinema and John Lewis parts of the centre mark the UK début of architecture firm Foreign Office Architects
Foreign Office Architects
Foreign Office Architects, FOA, was an internationally acclaimed architectural design studio headed by former husband and wife team Farshid Moussavi and Alejandro Zaera-Polo. The London based studio, which was established in 1993, specialised in architectural design, master planning and interior...
. The cinema is covered in a slightly buckled, stainless steel cladding, while the department store features two layers of glass, each with a swirling fabric design from John Lewis's archives, allowing light in and a view out, but obscuring the interior from the outside. The use of a fabric pattern recognises Leicester's past as a textile-producing city.
An open day was held on Sunday, 1 June 2008 to show the people around the new development. More than a thousand people attended. The newly extended and refurbished shopping centre opened to the public on 4 September 2008 with over 125,000 visitors and over a million visitors in its first two weeks. The new extension cost £350 million to construct and has been the largest regeneration project in the city for many years.
Naming controversies
On 14 July 2006, it was announced that the entire centre would be renamed the Highcross Quarter, relating to a Highcross that used to stand in what is now Highcross Street.This received a mixed reaction, with criticism directed in particular at the use of the word "quarter" as opposed to "centre".
On 19 July 2007, the principal owners of the development, Hammerson
Hammerson
Hammerson plc is a major British property development and investment company. The firm switched to Real Estate Investment Trust status when REITs were introduced in the United Kingdom in January 2007. It is traded on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index...
, announced that they had decided to change the new name for the centre to Highcross Leicester.
On 23 July 2007, the Leicester Mercury
Leicester Mercury
The Leicester Mercury is a British regional newspaper, owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust, for the city of Leicester and the counties of Leicestershire and Rutland...
reported that the latest name change had been the result of a year-long dispute
with a local coven
Coven
A coven or covan is a name used to describe a gathering of witches or in some cases vampires. Due to the word's association with witches, a gathering of Wiccans, followers of the witchcraft-based neopagan religion of Wicca, is also described as a coven....
of witches, who pointed out that "High Cross Quarter" is the name of a high point or major sabbat in the wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
n calendar, and registered five
internet domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
s relating to the name. Hammerson refused to comment on the dispute, and claimed that the name change was to "give it a stronger identity for customers and raise the profile not only of the development but also the city."
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
reported on 25 July 2007 that the Highcross Leicester developers had their offer to buy the domain names rejected.
Despite Hammerson saying they were no longer interested in the highcrossquarter domain names for the renamed Highcross Leicester development as the name had now "evolved", the Telegraph reported that Hammerson had escalated the matter all the way to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
where it was seeking a ruling on ownership of the highcrossquarter.com domain name. On 30 August 2007, the WIPO ruled against Hammerson's complaint.