IT'S the end of an era today as one of the town's oldest retailers - WH Smith - closes for the final time.
The retailer is among a dozen businesses on Cheapside and May Day Green leaving the Metropolitan Centre this month so the council can press ahead with refurbishment of the building as part of the Better Barnsley project.
It has been in Barnsley since before the First Wold War - establishing itself as bookseller WH Smith and Son on Market Hill in 1906.
It remained there until 1973 when the business moved to the newly built Metropolitan Centre, where it has stayed.
