It's an eerie relic of pre-pandemic life. The Wheatsheaf Shopping Centre in Rochdale was once a bustling mall with five floors of shops, including household names such as New Look, Wilko, and Ryman.
But now it stands abandoned and derelict, having never reopened after lockdown. Several stores started to leave the mall from 2017, as shopping habits changed and people began spending more time ordering online.
And lockdown proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back for the Wheatsheaf Shopping Centre. It closed its doors with the rest of the country in March 2020 and it was later revealed the mall wouldn't reopen; much to the disappointment of shoppers and business owners.
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The site was put up for sale shortly after the announcement, and was sold in September 2022. Commercial property consultant WT Gunson said: "The Wheatsheaf Shopping Centre provides a purpose built shopping centre constructed in 1991 totalling approximately 15,130sqm (162,862sqft) of accommodation, arranged over five levels.
"The centre closed down during the pandemic and remains closed, being largely vacant.
However, there are several tenanted units fronting Yorkshire Street including British Heart Foundation, H&T Pawn brokers, Craze and Greenwoods, which are income-producing."
These days, the shopping centre remains empty and eerily quiet. Mannequins were left behind in stores, and some have even spilled out onto the desolate concourse.
Graffiti artists clearly used the opportunity to spray paint inside the empty mall, while one jokester attached the head of a doll to a traffic cone, and left it in the middle of the floor. The floor remains dirty, with rubbish littering the corridors.
Planned building work also appeared to stop halfway through a project, leaving some walls and ceilings strewn across the floor.
Urban explorer UK Urbex managed to make their way inside the mall last year, revealing the creepy remnants of a bygone era. He uploaded the video to his YouTube page.
Meanwhile, WT Gunson confirmed it had sold the site at the end of 2022, after being listed for almost £3million. It's still managing the former Wheatsheaf Shopping Centre, and is open to enquiries.
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