Ricemans

Ricemans (part of the Fenwick group) was a British department store based in the city of Canterbury in Kent. It was established in the 1960s by Fred Riceman.

In 2003, the Ricemans store was closed and demolished as part of a major redevelopment in the city and subsequent rebuilding of the Whitefriars Shopping Centre. Ricemans was replaced by a new Fenwick department store.

Details

Ricemans was ajoined to the Whitefriars shopping centre, which had an entrance to M&S, a sports shop with stair up to Ricemans Cafe, and a fashion shop called 'Wallis'.Ricemans peaked up to 7 floors in height and boasted the largest toy department in canterbury, which was situated at the very top.

There was a fire which had damaged the structure of the building in the late 80's early 90's, which was repaired, formally named the great fire of Ricemans!

Ricemans was one of the biggest department stores in Canterbury, which sold a variety of fashion accessories, shoes, clothes, toys, home & gardenware.At christmas ricemans used the basement as the focus for their christmas decorations for many years.

During the war the area where Ricemans was sitting (Now Fenwicks) was bombed severely and a couple of decades later Ricemans was built over it as a quick job.If you check out some of Michael Pead's Photography you will find some very interesting changes there.

Ricemans used to stand directly facing the old Bus Station, which is where Next & Topshop is.Ricemans could be accessed from the main high street too further down, (Now where McDonalds is) used to be pilot and escalators up to the other side of the Whitefriars centre, this also provided access to the delivery area of Ricemans.