Knights

Comment: Everyone remembers Knights [Basingstoke] but no-one ever knew its address. It occupied an awkward-shaped shop on the curve on the slope that opened onto the New Market Square, forming a little triangle with the Goat & Barge pub and Nicholson’s Corner.

​Nicholson’s and Knights were both newsagents/confectioners but Knights allotted half its floor space as a record shop and it always had interesting stuff. There may have been Knights branches in other towns. Its head office was at Group House, Church Street in Caversham.

Name: Steve Maggs
Comment: Knights had a shop in a prestigious site on Broad Street but latterly relocated to a smaller shop on the corner of Friar Street and Union Street.

Name: Barry Case
Comment: Knights was the place to hang out on a Saturday. Had an extensive record section downstairs but also had a large toys and games department upstairs with all the current video games being demonstrated. Would spend hours up there... Good times.

Name: Paul Wright
Comment: I remember Knights really well. It was ITV to WH Smiths' BBC. All the records were downstairs...
(17 January 2013)

Name: Dave Harwood
Comment: I’ll never forget the first time I discovered Knights record shop [Croydon] in the early 1970s. Having cut through M&S to get into the Whitgift Centre my attention was immediately caught by the most awkwardly-shaped shop unit you could imagine. It was long and narrow but the side of it fronted the shopping centre with the entrance door on the right. Really strange, like it had been stuck on as an afterthought. I found a couple of Capitol albums in the reduced rack that I hadn’t got – Steve Miller Band’s Your Saving Grace and Seatrain’s Marblehead Messenger and went home very pleased.
(24 February 2016)

Name: Chris Groom
Comment: There was a small record outlet in the Whitgift Centre [Croydon] - not big enough to call it a shop! Mid-seventies, long and narrow, glass fronted, with barely room for three or four people at a time. Can't remember the name unfortunately.
(21 August 2013)

Name: Nick Storey
Comment: I remember there being a small record shop downstairs in the Whitgift Centre [Croydon] opposite Boots - very narrow place. I bought Hunky Dory there for £1.99.
(21 August 2013)

Name: Simon Gee
Comment: I was the record buyer for Knights in the Whitgift Centre [Croydon] for most of the 1970s until the whole firm was taken over by NSS. It was indeed a strange shape and was sort of carved out of the front of M&S. But did we shift some records! I knew that if customers started to ask for a single in quantities that it would be a hit in the UK, and this shop was always a couple of weeks ahead of our other shops in the Thames Valley, about a month ahead of our Plymouth branch. It was great having a separate record department, not mixed in with the news and sweets like the other shops in the chain. I always loved working there, and one Christmas we did exceptional business and it was great fun.
(2018)

Name: Sharon Buckley
Comment: I had a Saturday job in the newsagent part of the shop.
Between 1977-1978. I used to get great discounts on my records! Big orange squares outlined the top of the shops.
(2021)