Debenhams was an iconic UK department store which, until its ultimate demise on the 15th May 2021, had been trading for almost a quarter of a millennium. It had a reputation for being a business that placed an emphasis on customer experience and prided itself on occupying some of the grandest or most prominent buildings in the town and city centres where they had a presence. Unfortunately, Swindon isn't a town which contains anything that could reasonably be described as 'grand' and the most prominent building is the horrendously ugly Tower of Brunel. You could argue that, considering Debenhams was therefore unable to achieve its desired objective of occupying such a building, it was always destined to fail here. Personally, I wouldn't make that argument as it's a shit one. Instead, I'd argue that, in fact, the reason for its closure was its over-reliance on physical buildings in the age of the internet. Most businesses recognised that, in order to maximise traffic flow (and therefore profit) the inevitable shift towards online shopping was one to embrace - regardless of whether that embrace was loving or reluctant. Debenhams' steadfast faith in physical stores, and some questionable financial decisions in the early 2010s ultimately put them in a delicate financial situation.
In the late 2010s, what was a steady decline accelerated and after 240 years, the brand essentially crumbled in just around 5 years. Stores were shutting left and right, and by 2020 there were few physical stores left open. What was once a true British monolith had become frail as the years passed. With frailness comes vulnerability, and with the arrival of Covid-19, and the subsequent nationwide lockdowns, footfall was impossible. Therefore, vital income was impossible, and, as such, survival was impossible. It was all of these things together that led to the eventual demise of the Swindon branch in April 2020. By May 2021, there were no physical stores left in the United Kingdom.
With regards to history, there's not much else to say. It's only been 3 years since the last Debenhams closed, and only 4 since the Swindon branch closed. If anyone's interested, there are plans to make it into 'state of the art' storage facility... whatever the hell that means. A sad end for such a place, but the only constant in this world is change.
In February 2024 I was unfortunate enough to be passing through Swindon on the way back from seeing a friend but, fortunately, I was aware that Swindon is a shit-hole of a town and probably had some good opportunities for some impromptu fence-climbing and general exploration. While walking around the town centre I was struck by how similar the fate seems to be of many high streets up and down the country. But what really caught my eye was a building that looked very much like a very large, very abandoned office. After a 15 minute round trip to see where the best entry points were, I made my choice (an incredibly easy choice if you ever get the chance to visit!) and hopped over the fence, stealthily skirting all the armadillos spotted around the wide, flattened area outside.
It was time to pay my respects to this piece of British history by climbing inside its guts. There was an incredibly small hole smashed into one of the display windows (why aren't these bloody teenagers who like smashing things up ever fat?) and, considering it was mid afternoon on a weekend in the town centre and I was completely out in the open, visible to humans and armadillos alike, I figured I had to make my way inside sharpish. If you ever go for your own visit, I hope for your sake that the window has been expanded. Because yes, that is my blood on the window. No, you can't have it.
This is my first report, so I hope that I don't royally shit the bed when it comes to formatting / including images. We will see.
Essentially, the building (and the pictures) can be divided into 2 sections: (1) the areas where there were windows and therefore light, and (2) the areas where there were no windows / the windows were boarded up and therefore it was pitch black. It was seriously, seriously dark in there despite it being very light outside. Thankfully I brought with me a very powerful (though narrow) flashlight.
Look at this beautiful bastard:
Just inside:
Nice to get inside:
Pleasantly tidy / undamaged kitchen:
Yo dawg, I heard you like kitchens so we put a kitchen in yo kitchen:
A neat, tidy copy of this absolute classic was left in the kitchen. Hands up all my Swedish homies!
Anyone want a free surfboard? There's one here for you. But it may have been damaged when... someone tried using it as a skateboard. Didn't work. Didn't have wheels.
A crowd of adoring women flocked me after seeing my surfboard skating skills. Pity I'm not really into plastic girls:
Employee lockers
A little looking around showed that these very storage lockers were checked by staff to make sure employees weren't stealing. Gotta love feeling respected at work! Also - searching pockets? Really?
A couple of views of one of the potential ways in (the dumb way):
Least cynical retail employee:
Big ass safe:
Had been hearing some weird noises downstairs so thought I'd have a look. Not gonna lie, was sketchy as fuck considering the single way in / out was this tiny-ass hole (if you look at one of the pics you might actually see it), so if I was to run into some sketchy people down here I legitimately wouldn't be able to get out if they didn't want me to get out.
Slowly descending, senses alert... What do I see? Two blokes shagging!
Na but seriously though, I did genuinely find a bullet on the floor... Like... Wtf. Kind of exciting in a scary way.
Turn a corner and I literally found a murdered person:
Back on the middle floor, thought I'd go check out one of the entrances. You could hear all the people just the other side of the windows going about their daily lives. I knocked on the window a couple of times, could hear people asking wtf was that, haha. Pretty funny.
Feeling pretty good at this point, time to leave. Needed to look for other places in Swindon to hit up next time I'm down here. But my God... While getting in head first through the hole in the window was hard, getting out was IMPOSSIBLE. Literally took me 10 minutes. Props to the Chinese guy standing outside of the fire escape of the adjacent building who was smoking a cigarette and didn't stamp on my head while I was sliding under the fence towards him. Thanks for letting me take a selfie with you, dude! Not posting here though out of respect for him.
Leave the site and this is literally one of the first buildings I walked past:
I have other pics but a lot are just a bit too dark to be of any real interest.
8/10 explore, super eerie, so totally pitch black in like 80% of the site. Pretty sure there was someone in there with me but they didn't want to make themselves known, which I'm not going to complain about. No desire to make friends with any person who lives with manikins.
In the late 2010s, what was a steady decline accelerated and after 240 years, the brand essentially crumbled in just around 5 years. Stores were shutting left and right, and by 2020 there were few physical stores left open. What was once a true British monolith had become frail as the years passed. With frailness comes vulnerability, and with the arrival of Covid-19, and the subsequent nationwide lockdowns, footfall was impossible. Therefore, vital income was impossible, and, as such, survival was impossible. It was all of these things together that led to the eventual demise of the Swindon branch in April 2020. By May 2021, there were no physical stores left in the United Kingdom.
With regards to history, there's not much else to say. It's only been 3 years since the last Debenhams closed, and only 4 since the Swindon branch closed. If anyone's interested, there are plans to make it into 'state of the art' storage facility... whatever the hell that means. A sad end for such a place, but the only constant in this world is change.
In February 2024 I was unfortunate enough to be passing through Swindon on the way back from seeing a friend but, fortunately, I was aware that Swindon is a shit-hole of a town and probably had some good opportunities for some impromptu fence-climbing and general exploration. While walking around the town centre I was struck by how similar the fate seems to be of many high streets up and down the country. But what really caught my eye was a building that looked very much like a very large, very abandoned office. After a 15 minute round trip to see where the best entry points were, I made my choice (an incredibly easy choice if you ever get the chance to visit!) and hopped over the fence, stealthily skirting all the armadillos spotted around the wide, flattened area outside.
It was time to pay my respects to this piece of British history by climbing inside its guts. There was an incredibly small hole smashed into one of the display windows (why aren't these bloody teenagers who like smashing things up ever fat?) and, considering it was mid afternoon on a weekend in the town centre and I was completely out in the open, visible to humans and armadillos alike, I figured I had to make my way inside sharpish. If you ever go for your own visit, I hope for your sake that the window has been expanded. Because yes, that is my blood on the window. No, you can't have it.
This is my first report, so I hope that I don't royally shit the bed when it comes to formatting / including images. We will see.
Essentially, the building (and the pictures) can be divided into 2 sections: (1) the areas where there were windows and therefore light, and (2) the areas where there were no windows / the windows were boarded up and therefore it was pitch black. It was seriously, seriously dark in there despite it being very light outside. Thankfully I brought with me a very powerful (though narrow) flashlight.
Look at this beautiful bastard:
Just inside:
Nice to get inside:
Pleasantly tidy / undamaged kitchen:
Yo dawg, I heard you like kitchens so we put a kitchen in yo kitchen:
A neat, tidy copy of this absolute classic was left in the kitchen. Hands up all my Swedish homies!
Anyone want a free surfboard? There's one here for you. But it may have been damaged when... someone tried using it as a skateboard. Didn't work. Didn't have wheels.
A crowd of adoring women flocked me after seeing my surfboard skating skills. Pity I'm not really into plastic girls:
Employee lockers
A little looking around showed that these very storage lockers were checked by staff to make sure employees weren't stealing. Gotta love feeling respected at work! Also - searching pockets? Really?
A couple of views of one of the potential ways in (the dumb way):
Least cynical retail employee:
Big ass safe:
Had been hearing some weird noises downstairs so thought I'd have a look. Not gonna lie, was sketchy as fuck considering the single way in / out was this tiny-ass hole (if you look at one of the pics you might actually see it), so if I was to run into some sketchy people down here I legitimately wouldn't be able to get out if they didn't want me to get out.
Slowly descending, senses alert... What do I see? Two blokes shagging!
Na but seriously though, I did genuinely find a bullet on the floor... Like... Wtf. Kind of exciting in a scary way.
Turn a corner and I literally found a murdered person:
Back on the middle floor, thought I'd go check out one of the entrances. You could hear all the people just the other side of the windows going about their daily lives. I knocked on the window a couple of times, could hear people asking wtf was that, haha. Pretty funny.
Feeling pretty good at this point, time to leave. Needed to look for other places in Swindon to hit up next time I'm down here. But my God... While getting in head first through the hole in the window was hard, getting out was IMPOSSIBLE. Literally took me 10 minutes. Props to the Chinese guy standing outside of the fire escape of the adjacent building who was smoking a cigarette and didn't stamp on my head while I was sliding under the fence towards him. Thanks for letting me take a selfie with you, dude! Not posting here though out of respect for him.
Leave the site and this is literally one of the first buildings I walked past:
I have other pics but a lot are just a bit too dark to be of any real interest.
8/10 explore, super eerie, so totally pitch black in like 80% of the site. Pretty sure there was someone in there with me but they didn't want to make themselves known, which I'm not going to complain about. No desire to make friends with any person who lives with manikins.
