Hamleys has returned to Sheffield at Meadowhall - but do you remember when the toy shop had a store on The Moor?

Hamley's Toy Shop, The Moor, Sheffield - 9th July 1987

It was announced in the Sheffield Star in 1986 that ‘Britain’s biggest toy shop was to open a branch in Sheffield next year, bringing more than 100 jobs to the city’.

Hamleys, the store based on Regent Street in London, planned a huge city centre shop with three or four trading floors.

Chairman Peter Hindley refused to disclose the exact location of the store which opened on The Moor, but said it would be designed along the same lines as Hamleys in Regent Street, which is to be completely refitted in the New Year with the emphasis on entertainment.

Outside Hamley's Toy Shop, the Moor, Sheffield
c1987 — Outside Hamley's Toy Shop, the Moor, Sheffield c1987

Speaking at the time he said: “It’s going to be a much more exciting, entertaining place for children and their parents, with something new happening every week.”

He explained there would be lots of demonstrations of working models and appearances by cartoon characters and children’s TV stars, as well as more emphasis on sports goods, nursery goods and children’s clothing.

Work on the new shop started in March 1987, to be completed by September.

Sheffield council planner Chris Freegard described the Hamleys move as “very exciting.”

However the place did not last long and in 1988 came the news of the shock closure of the Sheffield branch, five months after it won the ‘toy wars’ which closed long-established rival Redgates.

The Star reported at the time that Hamleys would ‘shut its doors for the last time on October 29 with the loss of 26 jobs, heralding the final chapter in the battle for Sheffield children’s pocket money’.

The shop’s trading position was cemented in May when Redgates toy shop, which had traded for decades in Furnival Gate, was shut down by its owners.

But now, more than three decades on, Hamleys has returned with a new shop at Meadowhall which opened just before the second national lockdown. Read more about the store here.

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