Knightsbridge

Harrods is open Monday to Saturday from 10am to 9pm and Sunday from 12noon to 6pm.

020 7730 1234

Harrods was established in 1834 when founder Charles Henry Harrod set up a wholesale grocery in Stepney, with a special interest in tea. In 1849, to escape the filth of the inner city and to capitalise on trade to the Great Exhibition of 1851 in nearby Hyde Park, Harrod took over a small shop in the district of Knightsbridge, on the site of the current store. Beginning in a single room, employing two assistants and a messenger boy, Harrod’s son Charles Digby Harrod built the business into a thriving retail operation selling medicines, perfumes, stationery, fruit, and vegetables. Harrods rapidly expanded, acquired the adjoining buildings, and employed one hundred people by 1880.

However, the store’s booming fortunes were reversed in early December 1883, when it burnt to the ground in a disastrous fire. Remarkably, in view of this calamity, Charles Harrod fulfilled all of his commitments to his customers to make Christmas deliveries that year — and made a record profit in the process. A new building was built on the same site, and soon Harrods extended credit for the first time to its best customers. Among them were Oscar Wilde, legendary actresses Lilly Langtry and Ellen Terry, Noël Coward, Sigmund Freud, A. A. Milne, and many members of the British royal family.

Today, the store's 330 departments offer a wide range of products and services. Products include clothing, electronics, jewellery, sporting gear, bridal wear, pet accessories, toys, food and drink, health and beauty items, packaged gifts, stationery, housewares, home appliances, furniture, and much more. Services include 28 restaurants, serving everything from high tea to tapas to pub food to haute cuisine. Other services include personal shopping-assistance, a tailor, a beauty spa and salon, a barbers shop, a wine steward, and bespoke fragrance formulations.

Innocent Victims

Top - Home