YOU could be forgiven for thinking this picture is a photograph.

It is, actually, an artist’s impression of part of the £650,000 shops and offices block in Victoria Square in Bolton Town Centre which was due to open the following year.

This picture appeared in the Bolton Evening News in November 1965 and we felt it was particularly poignant as British Home Stores — or BHS as it became known — closed this year.

The major part of the block which stretched from Acresfield along Hotel Street and into Victoria Square was let to British Home Stores.

Workmen had already completed the trickiest part of the building operation at this point in time which involved installing Transatlantic cables and the ITV Winter Hill link cables across the site.

These had to be lifted from their former position under Back Acresfield and placed in ducting in the basement of the building which was then straggling the street.

The picture shows how an artist visualised the scene at the time before the complex was finished.

British Home Stores opened in 1966 but is now closed.