ONE of Warrington’s oldest family-run retailers will have extra to reasons to celebrate this week.

Hancock and Wood, on Bridge Street, will not only be reopening on Monday when restrictions ease, but it will mark a remarkable 107 years of being in business.

Now run by brothers Susie, it remains the biggest shop on what was once the main street through the centre of town.

And it has been in the Hancock family throughout the generations.

Even the Queen passed by the premises in the 1960s on an official visit to town.

Selling a variety of clothes and gifts, it is a shop every Warringtonian will have visited in their lifetime.

Its history began in 1914 when the well situated store of Thomas Grime came onto the market when the owner retired.

Selling dress materials, mantels, jackets, millnery and hosiery, it was housed next door to the shoe shop run by the Roberts family.

They alerted Frederick Samuel Hancock (a travelling haberdashery salesman who had married their daughter) that the business was for sale and he jumped at the chance to buy it.

Soon after though, he joined the First World War as a Royal Marine and during the war years, an elderly partner David Wood ran the firm.

And the company has been known by the name of Hancock and Wood since.

While the store inside has changed beyond recognition, it has become the oldest surviving retail business in Warrington town centre.

It celebrated its centenary back in April 2014.

Now the department store is still a key part of Warrington, standing close to the Time Square development and the new Warrington Market.