Hamleys is the oldest and largest toy shop in the world and one of the world's best-known retailers of toys. Founded by William Hamley as "Noah's Ark" in High Holborn, London, in 1760, it moved to Regent Street in 1881.

Its flagship store in London is across 7 floors with more than 50,000 toys. Located at Nos. 188-196 Regent Street, it is considered one of the city's major tourist attractions, receiving around five million visitors per year. The chain has six other outlets in the United Kingdom and others worldwide.

Hamleys was bought in 2003 by Baugur Group, an investment company in Iceland. Then was taken over by the Icelandic bank Landsbanki. In September 2012 Groupe Ludendo, a toy retailer based in France, bought Hamleys for £60 million.

History

Hamleys is the oldest and largest toy shop in the world. It is named after William Hamley, who founded a toy shop called "Noah's Ark" at No. 231 High Holborn in London in 1760. Ownership of the shop passed through the family, and by 

the time it was operated by Hamley's grandsons in 1837, the store had become famous, counting royalty and nobility among its customers.

A branch at No. 200 Regent Street, was opened in 1881; the Holborn branch was destroyed by fire in 1901 and was relocated to Nos. 86–87 High Holborn. The Regent Street branch later expanded to numbers 188-196.

In 1938, Queen Mary, the consort of King George V, gave Hamleys a royal warrant. During the Second World War, the Regent Street store was bombed five times. In 1955, Queen Elizabeth II gave the company a second royal warrant as a "toys and sports merchant".

Hamleys was bought in June 2003 by the Baugur Group, an Icelandic investment company. When Baugur collapsed, its stake in the toy store was taken over by the Icelandic bank Landsbanki. In September 2012 Groupe Ludendo, a toy retailer based in France with shops also located in Belgium, Spain and Switzerland, bought Hamleys for a reported £60 million.

United Kingdom stores

Regent Street

Hamleys moved its flagship store from No. 200, Regent Street, where it established in 1881, to its current address at Nos. 188–196, Regent Street, in 1981, which is the largest toy shop in the world.

Hamleys' flagship store has seven floors covering 54,000 square feet (5,000 m²), all devoted to playthings, with different categories of toy on each floor. In the late 1990s, Hamleys opened a specific Spice Girls department, dedicating their aisles to everything from Spice Girls stationery to Spice Girls dolls. The ground floor is traditionally for soft toys (including Steiff), and decked out with a diverse array of stuffed animals, from regular teddy bears to more exotic plushes such as turtles and dolphins, and enormous life-sized giraffes and elephants.

In December 2011, the flagship store has implemented a gender neutral approach to the categorisation of toys. There's no longer a boys or a girls floor, but rather the toys are categorised by type, such as "Arts & Crafts", "Outdoors" and "Soft Toys".

Other UK stores

Hamleys had a store in Sheffield towards the end of the late 1980s. Based in part of the old Robert Brothers department store that closed earlier in the 1980s, its address was Nos. 36–38, The Moor, Rockingham House. It closed after a few years due to high rates and lower-than-expected trade. Hamleys is also a holding company for several other toy companies in the United Kingdom. Most notably, Hamleys purchased The English Teddy Bear Company in 2004. Originally established by Dominic Richards, it failed to prove a success for Hamleys, and all eight stores were closed down within two years.

As a result of these large expansion failures under the previous management team, Hamleys most successful expansion efforts have been through running concession outlets at various UK airports. Hamleys run smaller stores at London Heathrow Airport, London Stansted Airport, London Gatwick Airport and Manchester Airport. There is also a small store at London's St. Pancras railway station and at York Designer Outlet, North Yorkshire.

On 26 November 2009 Hamleys opened a shop in Glasgow. The 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m²) outlet was part of a £100 million extension and redevelopment of the St. Enoch Centre.

There was also an outlet store at Great Western Outlet Village in Swindon, offering a more limited range of products. The store was closed in February 2010.

On 15 November 2012 Hamleys opened a shop in Cardiff. The store is located in the St. David's Shopping Centre, and is 13,000-square-foot (1,200 m²).

On 28 November 2013 a Hamleys was opened in the Trafford Centre, near Eccles in Greater Manchester.

Global stores

A Hamleys store in the shopping mall Emporia in Malmö, Sweden.

In 1987 Hamleys' second store was opened in New York City, however it was closed less than 12 months later.

Hamleys' European footprint existed in Denmark (three small stores) and, since 23 October 2008, the Republic of Ireland, when it opened a 3,250-square-metre (35,000 sq ft) store in Pembroke Avenue, located adjacent to the Town Square in Dundrum, Dublin.^[11][12][13] On 12 October 2012, a Hamleys store opened in Nacka in Stockholm, Sweden. On 19 September 2013, a Hamley store opened as part of Steen og Strøm department store in Oslo, Norway. In April 2014 the Hamleys Denmark toy chain closed all four of its Danish locations when its Nordic parent company, Kids Retails, filed for bankruptcy.

Hamleys opened its first store outside Europe in Amman, Jordan, on 18 June 2008. The three-storey store on Mecca Street is run by the group's franchisee Jordan Centre. A Dubai franchise opened with two stores on 4 November 2008.

The first store in Asia was opened in Mumbai on 9 April 2010. The 22,000-square-foot (2,000 m²) store is located in an upmarket shopping district in India's financial capital. A second store in India is located in the city of Chennai at the Express Avenue Mall. The 11,000 sq ft store has a London bus that customers can walk up through. It now has ten stores in India, including two stores in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, two stores in Mumbai, Pune and Chandigarh.Hamleys' opened a store in the Saudi capital Riyadh on 26 January 2012. The 2,100 sq m shop is located in the Panorama mall at Takhassusi Street's intersection with Prince Mohammed Road.

In 2013, Hamleys announced plans to open 20 stores across India in collaboration with Reliance Brands Ltd.. The company also announced that a store would open in the One Utama Shopping Mall in Kuala Lumpur, in November 2013, the first in south-east Asia.