PEOPLE have been on the phone this week; a couple have stopped me in the street. They all ask: “Is Binns being binned?”

The calls started at the beginning of the week as a platform went up outside the department store on Darlington’s High Row, and the letters that once formed “Binns” began coming down. The store has had a major makeover, and people attending Wednesday evening’s launch noticed that over the front door is now the name of the parent company: House of Fraser.

Binns – the Harrods of the North-East – is a regional institution. It was formed by Quaker draper George Binns in Sunderland in 1807, and, powered by the most blunt slogan in advertising history – “Shop at Binns” was plastered over the front of trams and buses – it spread to many towns in the 1920s.

However, since 1953, when Binns was taken over by House of Fraser, the name has slowly been slipping from sight. Binns’ historic headquarters in Sunderland closed in 1993, and since 2006, Darlington’s has been the only branch left to bear the name of Binns.

But, I am assured by House of Fraser’s PR people, that the name will live on. The store is to be a dual brand, with a couple of big “Binns” left on the fascia alongside the name of the Scottish interloper.

Which is great.

It is also great that people are looking at the buildings which surround them. Binns deserves a good look. It was the first branch outside Sunderland when it opened in 1922, taking over Arthur Sanders’ drapery, which had been founded in 1770.

Binns had big ambitions for Darlington, and began purchasing neighbouring properties on the corner of High Row and Blackwellgate. Their plans were accelerated when, on Saturday, January 24, 1925, just at pub kicking out time, the old drapery caught fire.

It was great entertainment for those staggering home. David Black, 28, was seen to climb up a fireman’s ladder, over the top of the fireman, and onto Binns’ roof, peering at the flames shooting out at him – a real night on the tiles.

He was later fined £2 by magistrates. "I plead guilty to being drunk," he said, "but I don't remember seeing the fire."

Hurriedly, Binns rebuilt – but they did so in style. In November, they reopened in a grand, art deco store, unlike anything else in town. Look up above the “House of Fraser” signs and see the classical motifs redesigned in a sleek, modern style for the Roaring Twenties. Amid the shiny white stone, there are some lovely little adornments at the top of columns and twiddlybits down the sides of the windows.

But look carefully, because not every property-owner succumbed to the lure of Binns’ chequebook. T Wood, photographer, refused to sell his mock-Elizabethan shop in Blackwellgate, and so Binns wrapped their new art deco store around him.

When his business closed in 1953, Binns bought his premises, but this coincided with their contentious takeover by their Glasgow rival, House of Fraser. It wasn’t until 1973 that they got round to replacing Mr Wood’s old shop. They tried to make it blend in with the rest of their store in terms of colour and scale, but as this was the brutalist 1970s, they couldn’t bring themselves to add any adornments or twiddlybits, and so, once you’re looking up and you’ve noticed it, it stands out like a sore thumb.

It’s a kind of monument to the man who looked down on Binns and their big chequebook.

IT is great to see House of Fraser investing in retail in Darlington but, as a pedant, I wish they hadn't spent so much on unnecessary apostrophes. "With 1000's of brands online", says a sign on the door. It may be common, but it is not right.