It was a lovely old shop. They went bust when they overstretched themselves - they opened a guitar factory making quality nylon string acoustics just aroud the time that the japanese flooded the UK market with the same thing for half the price.
Shame, they had some wonderful craftsmen working...
I think I'm a bit older than some of you but I cut my teeth playing with bands in the Brighton area. The Northern was my first gig, they used to have trad jazz during the week and I played clarinet with a pick-up band, I was 14 and still at school (Boundstone). Christ, that was 43 years ago...