Description

Circa 1840, altered 1910 (see Notes). 3 bays, 2 storeys and attic with butchers' shop to ground floor. Timber 2-leaf panelled door (to shop) with 2-pane hopper-type fanlight; large central shop window with small window to R; timber flush panelled door to L (to flat) with 2-pane letterbox fanlight above. Continuous shop fascia between ground and 1st floors, with moulded cornice above. 3 windows to 1st floor; 2 later piended dormers to attic. Rendered stone with stop-chamfered openings to ground; painted coursed droved stone with raised and rendered margins above; eaves course and moulded eaves cornice.

Timber sash and case windows, 4-pane to 1st floor (dormers unsympathetically modernised 2002); plate glass shopfront. Grey slate roof; flat skews and skewputs.

INTERIOR: relatively plain but original 1910 butchers' shop interior. White tiles to ¾ height with double band of blue-black tiles; tiled platform at base of walls with white fitted marble worktops on chrome supports; freestanding butcher's block (probably later); small metal-edged shelves; fitted chrome display rails to shop window; curved ceiling track with fitments for hanging carcasses; hatch to butcher's kitchen in flat above; dentilled cornice.

Statement of Interest

A long established family business, probably the 'oldest continuous business in Beith' (Reid p92), the Blackwoods have been butchers in Beith since 1775 and the family continues to live in the flat above the shop. The premises were remodelled at ground floor level in 1910 and there is photographic evidence (Reid p29), prior to this date, of a pend where the door to the shop is now. Blackwood's horses, which were apparently very fine, were stabled through the pend in the Wee Close at the rear of the building. Deliveries by horse and cart were made in Beith and the surrounding villages (Reid p93).

The 1910 remodelling included a re-fit of the shop's interior. The fixtures, including the marble worktops, tiled walls and chrome fittings, survive intact and are still in use today (2003). The carcass track enabled meat to be moved around the shop and to the butcher's kitchen above, through the hatch in the ceiling.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77780450

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)