200 years in business could be ended.

Centuries of tradition would come to an end if department stores Joplings and Robbs are forced to close this year.

Joplings celebrated its 200th anniversary in May, making it Sunderland's oldest department store.

The shop began life in 1804 as a drapery business named Jopling & Tuer in High Street East but was bought out in 1882 by Stephen Moriarty Swan and Robert Hedley, who set about expanding the store and its range of foods.

By 1919 Joplings had moved to larger premises in High Street West and marked its grand opening with the biggest half price sale Sunderland had ever seen.

The store even had its own currency. Joplings money took the form of tokens that people could obtain and then pay for over a number of weeks.

Customers could buy a pounds 1 token for 16 shillings and if hard times then hit them they could sell the token for real money at a discounted price.

Even a fire which destroyed the store in 1954 could not to interrupt its expansion for long.

Joplings moved to its current premises in John Street in 1956 with another innovation ( the city's first escalator.

In 1981, Joplings bought Robbs department store in Hexham High Street from the Robb family who had owned it since it was first opened in 1819.

Joplings was owned by the Swan family for more than 100 years before it was sold to the Merchant Retail Group in 1987.