Marks & Spencer Newcastle upon Tyne. M&S has opened a number of stores at out of town locations since the trend to build shopping centres away from town centres became popular in the 1980s. The first was at the MetroCentre, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, which opened in 1986. Another notable example is the store at the Merry Hill Shopping Centre at Brierley Hill, West Midlands. This store opened on 23 October 1990 shortly after the closure of stores in the nearby town centres of Dudley and West Bromwich; the Merry Hill store was not originally intended to replace these two town centre stores,
Darwin Shopping Centre on Pride Hill. Further access can be gained via the dual frontages into the centre offered by W H Smith, Marks & Spencer and H&M. It is joined to the Riverside Mall and the Pride Hill Shopping Centre via a pedestrian walkway and Raven Meadows. The centre is connected by a pedestrian link directly to council-owned multi-storey parking at 'Raven Meadows' and to the town bus station, which is in turn a short walk to Shrewsbury railway station. The centre is an unusual example of a vertical mall. Similar to the Pride Hill Shopping Centre, it is built on the