The Exchange Ilford is the main retail shopping mall of Ilford, east

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. It was owned by

The Mall Fund The Mall Fund owns and operates shopping centres in England using the trading name "The Mall Company". The shopping centres are usually branded and marketed as "the mall". The Mall Fund owned up to 10% of the covered retail space in the United Ki ...

for a period of time but has been sold and changed its name to Exchange Ilford in late 2010 or early 2011. The Exchange is located on Ilford High Road in the

town centre A town centre is the commercial or geographical centre or core area of a town. Town centres are traditionally associated with shopping or retail. They are also the centre of communications with major public transport hubs such as train or bus s ...

and opened on 6 September 1991.

Stores

The Exchange's anchor stores are H&M,

Marks & Spencer Marks and Spencer Group plc (commonly abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks's or Marks & Sparks) is a major British multinational retailer with headquarters in Paddington, London that specialises in selling clothing, beauty, home ...

TK Maxx TK Maxx is a subsidiary of the American apparel and home goods company TJX Companies based in Framingham, Massachusetts. The stores operate throughout the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Austria and the Netherlands, total ...

and

Wilko Wilko may refer to: People * Wilko Johnson (1947–2022), English musician * Wilko de Vogt (born 1975), Dutch football goalkeeper, mostly played for Dutch clubs * Wilko Risser (born 1982), Namibian-German football forward, mostly played for German ...

(the latter of which occupies a former

Woolworths Woolworth, Woolworth's, or Woolworths may refer to: Businesses * F. W. Woolworth Company, the original US-based chain of "five and dime" (5¢ and 10¢) stores * Woolworths Group (United Kingdom), former operator of the Woolworths chain of shop ...

store). Other major stores within Exchange Ilford include

Next Next may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Next'' (1990 film), an animated short about William Shakespeare * ''Next'' (2007 film), a sci-fi film starring Nicolas Cage * '' Next: A Primer on Urban Painting'', a 2005 documentary film Lit ...

WH Smith WHSmith (also written WH Smith, and known colloquially as Smith's and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son) is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and ...

, New Look,

Sports Direct Frasers Group plc (formerly known as Sports Direct International plc) is a British retail, sport and intellectual property group, named after its ownership of the department store chain House of Fraser. The company is best known for trading pre ...

Burger King Burger King (BK) is an American-based multinational chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida–based restaurant c ...

Ryman Ryman is a stationery retail company with 205 outlets nationwide in the United Kingdom. The website and stores provide a wide range of stationery and office supplies for homes and businesses, with its headquarters in Crewe, Cheshire. Hist ...

Poundland Poundland is a British variety store chain founded in 1990. It once sold most items at the single price of £1, including clearance items and proprietary brands. The first pilot store opened in December 1990 following numerous rejections by ...

Peacocks Peafowl is a common name for three bird species in the genera '' Pavo'' and '' Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae, the pheasants and their allies. Male peafowl are referred to as peacocks, and female peafowl are re ...

The Body Shop The Body Shop International Limited, trading as The Body Shop, is a British cosmetics, skin care and perfume company. Founded in 1976 by Anita Roddick, the company currently has a range of 1,000 products sold in about 3,000 stores, divid ...

, and

GAME A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (su ...

. More stores are located just outside the Exchange, including an Argos,

Waterstones Waterstones, formerly Waterstone's, is a British book retailer that operates 311 shops, mainly in the United Kingdom and also other nearby countries. As of February 2014, it employs around 3,500 staff in the UK and Europe. An average-sized W ...

and the recently opened

Primark Primark Stores Limited (; trading as Penneys in the Republic of Ireland) is an Irish multinational fast fashion retailer with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. It has stores across Europe and in the United States. The Penneys brand is not us ...

Structure

It trades from three levels of retail, though its architectural design layout has resulted in the lower floor of retail being separated into two parts, meaning customers wishing to access both parts of the lower level have to travel between the sections via the middle level. There is also an upper level of retail and

food court A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dinner. ...

facilities accessed from the middle level. Transit between levels is via a series of lifts, stairs and escalators within the Mall; in addition, some stores trade from two or more levels of the mall. The design and layout of some of the stores is notable: the

store is bisected by the Mall site: at ground level it is accessible from the High Road by its external doors either side of the Mall entrance, whilst on the middle level of the mall it is accessible from two entrances facing opposite each other (as in Broadway Bexleyheath). One of the two sides of M&S is also publicly accessible from the Upper level of the Mall. However, one side closed in July 2015.

was initially two separate stores facing each other on opposite sides of the Mall, but this has more recently been changed, with the extension of TK Maxx across the mall area to create a single unified store, in effect splitting the lower mall into three segments, with a third section around the Cranbrook Road entrance (by Wilko) which is now separated from the other main part of the lower mall by TK Maxx. Past architectural features of the mall are a now gone granite floating sphere and a wishing fountain.

Ownership

In 2012, it was reported that the centre is owned by the London-based Dutch privately held real estate investment company

Meyer Bergman MARK Capital Management (previously Meyer Bergman) is a privately held real estate investing, real estate investment management firm with more than €7 billion in assets under management. MARK Capital Management was formed in 2004 by its chairma ...

Capital & Regional Capital & Regional plc is a large British manager of property assets - mainly shopping centres - for funds in which it has a significant stake. History The company was founded in 1979 as ''Capital & Regional Properties''. It was floated on the Un ...

have owned it since 2017.

Access

Exchange Ilford is in the town centre of Ilford and is accessible by car, with access to parking via Havelock Street and Ley Street. The centre is also served by the numerous Transport for London bus services which serve central Ilford.

References

{{Shopping centres in London Shopping centres in the London Borough of Redbridge Ilford