London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
Top of the morning to you, London walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s Friday, March 6th, 2026.
And here it is, here’s your daily London fix.
And what do you know? We got lured to Oxford Street yesterday. Because of the developing story about its forthcoming pedestrianisation.
And here we are at Oxford Street again today. The place is adhesive. You can’t get shot of it.
So here’s the drum roll question for you.
How did shopping become entertainment?
Let us go then, you and I, back
to London in the first week of March, 1909.
There was a buzz in this town.
Newspapers were talking about an enormous new department store about to open on Oxford Street. Advertisements were appearing everywhere.
Londoners were curious.
Some were sceptical.
Others were frankly excited.
Because an exuberant American named Gordon Selfridge was about to unveil the most ambitious shop the city had ever seen.
Selfridge himself came from Wisconsin,
a state whose name comes from the Ojibway language and means “the land of the gathering waters.”
When people ask where I’m from I sometimes say exactly that.
The land of the gathering waters. It’s a much more pleasing way of putting it than Cheeseheadland. Wisconsinites – as every American knows – are known as Cheeseheads because Wisconsin is the great dairy state of America.
Anyway, our man, Gordon Selfridge, was born in Ripon, Wisconsin, a small Midwestern town that even today has fewer than eight thousand inhabitants.
From there his family moved to Michigan, and then some years later the young Gordon made his way back to Wisconsin – Racine, Wisconsin, to be exact, another small Midwestern town, and then to Chicago.
But imagine the contrast when he first arrived in London.
From small towns of a few thousand people to a city of seven million.
The largest city on earth.
Even Chicago would have seemed like small beer in comparison with The Big Smoke.
You can imagine what that must have felt like to a young retailer with imagination.
Now picture Oxford Street as it was in 1909.
Oxford Circus was already the London centre of shopping.
But farther west, toward Marble Arch, the street became quieter. Smaller shops. Boarding houses.
A rather mixed neighbourhood.
Not the obvious place for the greatest department store in London.
But Selfridge had learned something important in Chicago at the great
Marshall Field department store.
Shopping could be theatre.
Not merely a practical errand.
An experience.
So in 1906 he moved to London and bought a vast site on the western end of Oxford Street.
And there he began building what would become Selfridges.
The building itself was immense.
But here’s an intriguing detail.
When the store opened,
the grand façade we know today, those great classical columns,
was not yet finished.
The building grew in stages over the following years,
just as Selfridge’s revolution in shopping grew with it.
Inside, the spectacle was astonishing.
Selfridge hired 1,200 staff
before the store even opened.
He spent the remarkable sum of £36,000 on advertising.
And he filled the store with things London shops had rarely offered before.
Reading rooms.
Rest rooms.
A free information bureau.
One hundred and thirty departments under a single roof.
Customers were encouraged to wander in,
browse,
look around.
Even if they had no intention of buying anything.
Before Selfridge,
shopping had been brisk and practical.
After Selfridge,
shopping became a leisure activity.
Selfridge also understood publicity.
In July 1909 the French aviator Louis Blériot, pronounced Blay-ree-oh, became world famous by flying across the English Channel.
Selfridge persuaded him to let the actual aeroplane be displayed inside the store.
Londoners flocked to see it.
Tens of thousands visited.
And many of them stayed to shop.
The store itself opened on Monday, March 15th, 1909.
Selfridge deliberately chose Monday because it was traditionally a quiet shopping day. He thought people would have space to explore the store.
Instead thousands gathered outside before the doors even opened.
Police had to help control the crowds.
And when the doors finally opened,
people poured in.
Some bought things.
But many simply wandered about, marvelling at the place.
Exactly as Selfridge had intended.
Gordon Selfridge believed
shop windows should be
“theatre on the street.”
They weren’t merely displays.
They were stage sets for the street.
People would stop and stare.
And once they had stopped,
they might as well go inside.
Selfridge himself presided over the spectacle like the ringmaster of a great performance.
Every day he walked the floors in a top hat,
inspecting displays and greeting customers.
His famous motto summed up the revolution he had brought to London retail.
“The customer is always right.”
There’s even a lovely royal footnote.
One of the early visitors to the store was King Edward VII,
who reportedly remarked with amused approval,
“I see this is the American way of doing things.”
And the gamble about location paid off.
People had said the store was absurdly far west on Oxford Street.
But Selfridge understood something fundamental.
If the store was dazzling enough, people would walk the extra distance.
And they did.
Selfridge didn’t move the store toward the shoppers.
He moved the shoppers toward the store.
Within a generation Oxford Street had become the great shopping boulevard we know today.
And at its heart stood Selfridges.
Those great classical columns you see on the façade.
A temple of commerce.
And more than a century later,
the show still goes on.
If all this has put you in the mood to see Selfridges for yourself, there’s a rather nice way to do it.
Our Old Marylebone Walk goes on Saturdays.
It meets at Bond Street Underground Station,
just a short stroll from Selfridges.
You could get there a little early, wander west along Oxford Street, stand in front of those great columns,
and look at the windows.
Step inside.
Do what Londoners did in 1909, when it was thrillingly new.
Browse. Explore.
Perhaps grab a coffee or a bite to eat in the café.
Then, suitably fortified,
wander back to Bond Street,
meet your guide and the other walkers,
and set off
on the Old Marylebone Walk.
And if you really want to do it properly,
finish the afternoon with tea and cakes at the Wallace Collection.
That glorious glass-roofed courtyard,
the atrium designed by the American architect Rick Mather of Portland, Oregon.
Suffused with light.
Taken all in all,
that’s a beautifully planned half-day in London.
Four hours that could hardly be better spent.
Making the very best possible use of one’s precious time in London.
And that’s it for today.
You’ve been listening to London Calling – the London Walks podcast, a continuing chronicle of London.
Another chapter in London’s endless story.
And, this goes without saying, but I’m going to say it all the same, if you’d like to explore this endlessly fascinating city with guides who know the stories behind London’s streets, come and walk with us at walks.com.
And since Marylebone and the gem in the jewel box – the Wallace Collection – had a tiny cameo role in today’s podcast, tomorrow on London Calling…
we’re doing the curious story of the artist born in Marylebone who painted animals so brilliantly that Queen Victoria adored him – and by royal command called on our mystery guest – that famous artist – to give London four of its most famous residents.
The lions of Trafalgar Square.
Until then…
Good walking. And good Londoning, one and all. See you tomorrow.