BHS

Bhs once almost rivalled M&S, but from the front entrance and most of the clothes on sale in the front of the store, you really wouldn’t know it. Quite a few are very plain — the real standby stuff. Its only further back in the store, the frontage onto the shopping centre, that anything a bit fun or a bit special is seen. Its definitely there, you’ve just got to get past that external frontage.
The home wares in the basement are mostly very good indeed — I’ve bought quite a few things there over the years. The café is absolutely huge, it takes up a lot of floor space. When its full, the din is appalling, there are no sound baffles that I can tell. Its cheap and cheerful yes, but it feels quite sad to me, though I can tell its trying to go upmarket. It does have its own loos, which is quite a plus.
There’s also a little snackbar/​juice bar right on the shopping centre frontage, no wall at all, which looks pretty cool.
The atmosphere is quite chequered — some of this store is bang up to date, a few of the other parts have regressed to the 1950s, its quite odd.

Bhs is one of the anchor stores of Brighton’s Churchill Shopping centre, and has entrances both onto the Square itself behind the Western Road bus stops, and in the shopping centre.
Spread over two levels, it has the familiar Bhs sections for men’s, children’s and women’s clothing, homewares, lighting, and a coffee shop. It’s great for things like good-​value basic bed-​linens and towels, although their clothing is rather too conservative for me. Their lighting section is not quite the flagship it used to be, but is still not bad, and they great offers from time to time on things like luggage.
Their seasonal sales are also good, with lots of decent reductions. The only quibbles I have is that they don’t seem to have many staff, so checkouts occasionally get a bit busy; and they only have two changing cubicles for men and boys — as if they don’t expect men to try things on before buying. Women are rather more generously catered for.
On the plus side, the cafeteria has just had a nice revamp, and they do nice snacks and sandwiches, although it seemed rather quiet when we visited the other day.

As opposed to Debenhams, this department store is more tailored for families, where there is a large kids department and mens and womens department for older generations. there is also a restaurant inside where you can sit down and coffee, or enjoy breakfast there before 12pm. It is clean, spacious and split into 2 very large floors. There are also additional departments such as lighting, bedding and bathroom.