100 years of bare bottoms in Binns' window in Darlington

“So greatly have the ramifications of the business of Messrs Binns developed,” said Echo’s sister paper, the Darlington & Stockton Times, in early September 1922, “that the renowned north of England firm have found it necessary to open out at Darlington. They have acquired one of the oldest high class businesses in the town, Messrs Arthur Sanders Ltd, a firm established so far back as the year 1770.”

Arthur Sanders' drapery business, which Binns bought 100 years ago this week, is on the extreme left

Sanders was a family drapery business on High Row which, after 150 years of trading, had slipped into liquidation. It was the third shop north of the corner with Blackwellgate.

Binns had been formed by Quaker draper George Binns in Sunderland in 1807, but the start of the 20th Century was the age of the department store, and it was in a hurry to expand.

“This is the first time that Messrs Binns have opened premises outside Sunderland and it may be taken for granted that they will make the most of the opportunity of showing what they can do in the way of a branch development,” said the D&S Times. “For a start, they have decided to make an entire clearance of Messrs Sanders’ stock, this taking the form of a gigantic sale for three days only – Friday, Saturday and Monday, September 15, 16 and 18.

“Everything will be cleared irrespective of what it cost so as to enable Messrs Binns to restock their new branch with the latest and best autumn and winter goods.”

Having cleared out all of Sanders’ old stock, Binns spent £15,000 revamping the High Row store and reopening it as a Binns, and tens of thousands of pounds more on further expansion. In 1923, it bought Thomas Jones’ old drapery in Middlesbrough, and reopened that as a Binns, followed by similar acquisition and rebranding in West Hartlepool (1926), South Shields (1927), Newcastle (1929), Carlisle and Dumfries (1933) and Edinburgh (1934).

It spent even more on advertising – by 1924, it had its simple slogan of “shop at Binns” on the front of every Sunderland tram – which helped establish it as the premiere department store in the region.

However, the Darlington store still looked very much like an old-fashioned drapery outlet until, on January 24, 1925, the largest fire for decades in Darlington broke out at its rear.

Fire at Binns' first store on High Row in January 1925. Picture courtesy of the Darlington Centre for Local Studies

“Bursting out at ten o’clock,” reported the D&S Times, “it had the effect of providing a thrilling night’s entertainment for many thousands. Without doubt, the mass of people congregated in and about High Row, Blackwellgate and Skinnergate at eleven o’clock was the largest seen in Darlington.” The fire coincided with closing time on a Saturday night and some of the town’s finest young men were rather inebriated.

David Black, 28, of York Street, spotted a fireman’s ladder leaning up against the burning Binns and decided to climb up. He then clambered over the top of a fireman and onto the burning roof where the crowd saw him drunkenly wandering amid the flames. Magistrates later fined him £2.

“I plead guilty to being drunk,” he said, “but I don’t remember seeing the fire.” Binns lost £50,000 of stock in that invisible fire, and the shop was gutted.

Demolition on the corner of Blackwellgate and High Row in 1925 to allow the Binns department store to be built. Picture courtesy of the Darlington Centre for Local Studies

However, the company had already been buying up property on the corner and the fire forced its hand. It had to quickly rebuild and so it turned all the properties it owned into a classic white brick department store – this was the style set by Selfridges, the king of the department stores, which had opened in Oxford Street in London in 1909.

The new Binns store on High Row is on the left

The white Darlington department store began trading in November 1925, wrapping itself around those properties that Binns had been unable to purchase – you can still see where properties on High Row, in 1935, and Blackwellgate, in 1973, were acquired and were rebuilt in the white brick style so that they nearly fit in with the rest of Binns.

Binns itself was bought in 1953 by House of Fraser, which gradually became the dominant name on the North-East high streets. For example, in 1957 when the Middlesbrough store was rebuilt in Linthorpe Road in the classic departmental style, it reopened as House of Fraser. Binns’ historic headquarters in Sunderland closed in 1993, and since 2006, Darlington’s has been the only branch left to bear the name. The name was threatened in 2016 when House of Fraser did a near £1m refit on the High Row store, but public pressure ensured that it stayed, although relegated in prominence. In its heyday, Binns was the place to shop for that special occasion. Its window displays attracted large crowds of people and inspired them to save for their big day.

Binns was such an established part of North East culture that if someone believed that an event was utterly improbable – like, for example, little Middlesbrough beating the mighty Manchester United at football – they would promise to bare a part of their anatomy in Binns’ window should it come to pass, knowing that they were completely safe from any risk of exposure.

The only recorded example of someone actually, and with Binns’ permission, baring their backside in a shop window was in 1998 when the former Middlesbrough footballer Bernie Slaven rashly suggested on live radio it was impossible for Boro to win at Old Trafford.

Boro immediately won 3-2 – their first victory at Manchester United for 68 years – and, in front of thouosands of spectators, Mr Slaven’s backside, in a red thong with the scoreline written on his cheeks, adorned the shop window.

"If only I had kept my big mouth shut," he said.

Mr Slaven bares his bottom in Binns' window in Middlesbrough in 1998 - well, he wore a red thong (below). WARNING: This picture is not for the faint-hearted