Summary
Co-operative stores of 1873 with later-C19 extensions and C20 alterations. It comprises four main phases dated left to right 1892, 1892-1894, 1873 and 1882-1883.
Reasons for Designation
This Co-op building of 1873 with late-C19 extensions and C20 alterations is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* a later-C19 co-operative store prominently located in the commercial heart of Bishop Auckland, notable for its scale and architectural confidence, characteristic of the aspirational spirit of the wider Co-operative movement;
* its multi-phase main elevation in a distinctive loosely Gothic Revival-style with classical influences, is well-articulated with lively detailing that achieves a stylistic consistency and uniformity;
* a legible plan-form is retained, with the clear separation of retail space fronting the street and offices and warehouses to the rear, providing a good illustration of the functioning of a large co-operative store;
* the interior spaces retain a range of historic fixtures and fittings including plasterwork, joinery and an original public staircase, and illustrate a clear hierarchy of spaces within.
Historic interest:
* a relatively early example of a co-operative store with a strong association to the wider co-operative movement, which was an important feature of the labour movement in Industrial Britain.
Group value:
* it benefits from a spatial group value with a small number of listed buildings including the early-C20 former Gregory Butcher Shop, with which it also has a functional group value as a commercial building.
History
In 1844 the Rochdale Pioneers founded the modern Co-operative Movement in Lancashire to provide an affordable alternative to poor-quality and adulterated food and provisions, using any surplus to benefit the community. Since then, the co-operative movement has flourished, extending across the globe and encompassing all sectors of economy.
The Bishop Auckland Co-operative Society was founded in 1860, and in 1862 it opened its first shop on South Church Lane. Later in 1862 it established a shop in a pre-existing commercial building at 84 Newgate Street. This building was demolished in 1873 and replaced by a four-bay building, designed by local architect William Vickers Thompson (1836-1888). The new building was extended to the north between 1882 and 1883 and to the south between 1892 and 1894 to designs of Robert Wilkinson Thompson (1850-1896). In 1902 the adjoining pre-existing building to the south (dated 1894) was purchased by the society and incorporated into the store. The front range provided a variety of retail showrooms and served as the ‘public face’ of the Bishop Auckland Co-operative Society. Rear offices and warehouse buildings provided operational and ancillary functions including administration, storage, processing, packing and transportation. This office and warehouse complex also developed in incremental stages, generally closely aligned to the development of the front range on Newgate Street; the most substantial was built in 1883, shortly after the first phase of extension in 1882-83, and again in 1893 to the rear of the southern extension underway at the same time. Other warehouses of unknown dates were added in the early C20 and are shown on survey and proposal plans in 1961 for a substantial phase of alterations and modernisation, which resulted in the expansion of retail space to the rear. All original ground floor shopfronts were completely remodelled in the second half of the C20 with the loss of all historic fabric, some of the pointed gables have become truncated and a pair of oriel windows to the extreme left end have been removed. The society ceased to operate in 1968, but the building remained in Co-operative ownership until 2011 when it was sold to Beales Department Store. The latter ceased trading in 2017 and the building remains vacant (August 2021). In 2019 the building was the subject of a detailed level-3 building survey report by Historic England: Former Central Stores to Bishop Auckland Co-operative Society 80 Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland: Historic Building Report.
Details
Co-operative stores of 1873 with later-C19 extensions and C20 alterations.
MATERIALS: the original 1873 building is of snecked stone with ashlar dressings, and the other phases are of dressed stone; brick sides and rear.
PLAN: a long rectangular range of buildings of four phases fronting the street, with a variety of variously shaped rear extensions.
EXTERIOR: three storeys of four separate blocks plus basements. It comprises four main phases dated left to right 1892, 1892-1894, 1873 and 1882-1883. There is a single, renewed ground-floor shop front which spans all four builds.
The original 1873 building has four recessed round-headed window openings to the first floor, paired to the centre and set below a shallow segmental arch with narrow flanking windows under similar arches. An impost moulding is carried on colonnettes with carved capitals. A continuous hood moulding over the segmental arches terminates in carved label stops at either end and roundels are set in the spandrels of the flanking windows and a carved triangular panel in the spandrel between the two central windows. To the second floor one-over-one sash windows are recessed within square-headed openings set on a continuous projecting moulded sill course carried on paired moulded consoles. The outer windows have quadrant cornered lintels each with a central carved panel; the two central windows have segmental heads with central projecting keystones. The ‘M’ profile slate roof is concealed behind a parapet containing a central embossed ‘1873’ date stone flanked by six chamfered circular perforations. The parapet is set on a moulded cornice returning at both ends and carried on evenly spaced, plain moulded consoles.
Attached to the right of the original building is a six-bay extension of 1882-3 with a pointed gable over the two left bays. The latter has paired shoulder-arched windows openings with one- over-one recessed sash windows set below pointed-arch hood mouldings terminating in carved label stops and containing carved enrichments to the tympana. At second floor three recessed segmental-headed one-over-one sash windows are grouped on a continuous projecting moulded sill course carried on four, equally spaced, plain moulded corbels separated by colonnettes and set in a rectangular opening broken by a central upward-projecting pointed arch containing carved enrichment. Above, a stepped pediment contains square diamond relief panels and other carved embellishments. The slate roof over the main building is concealed behind a parapet identical to that on the 1873 building. It contains a central embossed ‘1882’ date stone flanked by six chamfered circular perforations.
Attached to the left of the original building is the 1892-1894 section of six bays which is almost an exact mirror image of the 1882 building to the north, the only significant difference being in the slightly wider pedimented three-bay section, where the latticework decoration of the tympanum has been removed leaving the pediment truncated.
The left end block of 1894 has three bays with moulded sill bands, eaves cornice, a parapet balustrade and ball finials on the parapets and gables. The quoined, central bay slightly projects under a pointed gable (truncated) that bears in relief an inset cartouche with the initial CM and the date 1894. The two-light and three-light stone-mullioned windows to the first and second floors have Gibbs surrounds. The sill band of the former continues to the flanking bays, which have renewed first-floor windows with inserted flat stone lintels. Second floor windows have architraves, friezes and entablatures matching that of the central windows.
INTERIOR: the interiors of the front ranges have undergone several modifications including the removal of original partition walls and the blocking and modification of original openings. There is a single surviving cast-iron column with quatrefoil brackets to the original building basement, whose ground floor retains inserted late-C19 columns encased in display panelling. Historic fixtures and fittings include the remains of a panelled plaster soffit to a formerly larger opening carried on a wide fluted plaster console with egg and dart enrichment, late-C19 flooring beneath later floor coverings, original ceilings with moulded cornices above inserted ceilings and some late-C19 plaster work to one of the walls. To the first extension there is a timber post carrying a central beam in the basement. The second extension retains an original but modernised bifurcated late-C19 public staircase which rises through all floors whose balustrading has been replaced in glass and stainless steel. The original first floor boardroom remains, and is entered through a late-C19 half-glazed double door set into a glazed screen. The room has exposed soft-wood floorboards, moulded skirtings, dado and cornices, and traces of what is considered to be an early-C20 decorative scheme. The former managing secretary’s office has a four-panel door and a timber and tile fireplace surround. It is understood that the late-C19 roof structures remain in situ. The rear ranges are considered to retain significant original plaster work and other features beneath later boarding. They also retain evidence of hoists, grilles, lifts and transportation linked to cart entrances and surviving ‘Gateways’ paved with timber cobbles. It is anticipated that the building overall is likely to contain further evidence of internal ornament and fitments which are currently obscured by C20 stud walling and suspended ceilings.
