Originally founded in 1838 as ‘Kennington & Jenner’ by linen drapers Charles Jenner and Charles Kennington, Jenners Department Store was a staple with Edinburgh shoppers for over 180 years.
The business’s original building was destroyed by fire in 1892, with Scottish architect William Hamilton Beattie appointed to design a replacement store the year after. It was completed in 1895 and remains a category A listed building on Princes Street.
When Charles Jenner retired in 1881 the so-called ‘Harrods of the North’ was taken over by James Kennedy and his descendants, the Douglas Miller family, ran the company until it was sold to House of Fraser for £46.1 million in 2005.
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The store, which had held a Royal Warrant since 1911, remained open under the Jenners name, even when the building was bought by Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen in 2017.
But in 2021 it was announced that Jenners would close for good, at the cost of over 200 jobs. A year later planning permission was granted for the building to be converted into a 96-room hotel retaining the iconic three-storey central atrium and the Jenners signage.
Here are 29 pictures to take you back to Jenners’ glory days in the 1950s and 1960s.
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27. Christmas delivery
A Jenners delivery van on Randolph Crescent in December 1965. | TSPL

