Harrods is a department store that specialises in luxury goods on Brompton Road in
Knightsbridge, London, England. The Harrods brand also applies to other enterprises
undertaken by the Harrods group of companies including Harrods Bank, Harrods
Estates, Harrods Casino, Harrods Aviation, and Air Harrods.
The
store occupies a 4.5 acre site and has over one million square feet of selling
space in over 330 departments. This makes Harrods the largest department store
in the world (a tie with New York's Macy's) and by far the largest in the United
Kingdom (the UK's second-biggest store, Oxford Street's Selfridges is a little
over half the size with 540,000-square-foot. The Harrods motto is Omnia
Omnibus Ubique —- All Things for All People, Everywhere. Several of its departments,
including the seasonal Christmas department and the Food Hall are world
famous. The nearest tube station to the store is Knightsbridge. An entrance to
the station is positioned adjacent to the store. Harrods was established in 1834
in London’s East End, when founder Charles Henry Harrod set up a wholesale grocery
in Stepney,with a special interest in tea. In 1849, to escape the filth
of the inner city and to capitalise on trade to the Great Exhibition of 1851 in
nearby Hyde Park, Harrod took over a small shop in the district of Knightsbridge,
on the site of the current store. Beginning in a single room employing two
assistants and a messenger boy, Harrod’s son Charles Digby Harrod built the business
into a thriving retail operation selling medicines, perfumes, stationery,
fruit, and vegetables. Harrods rapidly expanded, acquired the adjoining buildings,
and employed one hundred people by 1880. |
