Ted Baker has opened its ‘Tedbury Village’ store in Bluewater today .

The 7,000 sq ft store is located on Bluewater’s lower Guildhall area. It replaces Ted Baker’s previous 3,600 sq ft store at Bluewater.

The space is split in to four different ‘shops’ within it including a country pub, an old apothecary, a butchers and a tea and cake shop, based on a fictional Kent town of Tedbury.

The Tedbury Times newspaper, unique to Ted’s Bluewater store, will also be distributed in the shopping centre today to commemorate the opening and inform customers about the new store and Ted’s autumn 11 collections. 

According to Ted Baker, the store has been upsized because Bluewater is a strong trading location for the brand and it wished to capitalise on the shopping centre’s strong growth.

The move comes as the brand plans to roll out in-store Wi-Fi by the end of the year, as part of plans to link its online and offline strategy.

Ted Baker’s brand communications director Craig Smith told New Media Age magazine that the roll-out will begin ahead of Christmas shopping. Ted Baker is also identifying key retail outlets to install touchscreen devices, which will display content such as catalogues.