Description

Possibly Colonel Tawse and Messrs Hall, 1936. Single storey and 2-storey with attic, 6-bay, terraced, Art Deco style former Co-operative building adjoining separately listed Carron Restaurant, Cameron Street. Fine decoratively-astragalled top-lights, coloured glass medallions and original shop doors with brass door furniture. Granite ashlar shop fronts, with crenellated, crowstepped darker ashlar 1st floor bays; harl and coursed rubble to side. Oversized stylised keystone and capitals.

N (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 3 single storey bays to right of centre incorporating stepped moulded shop front at outer right with large centre keystone, deep-set centre door with margined glazing and original handle, flanking fixed display windows and 3-part decorative top light with coloured glass medallion depicting grocery basket over entrance. Paired smaller shops to left with deep-set outer doors (that to right as above), inner display windows and dividing pillar, shop to right with coloured glass medallion depicting cow's head and that to left with wheatsheaf (see Notes). Further pillar to outer left adjoining 2-storey building with 2 similar (but altered) shops, that to centre with decorative top light with pestle and mortar medallion. Broader shop at outer left comprising 2-part fixed display window, boarded top light and doorway to outer angle with metal roller giving way to deeply in-canted door, mosaic-tiled floor with monogrammed 'NCSL' and flanking display windows. 1st floor with 3 wide-centre tripartite windows and 4-light window to outer left angle, later out-of-character flat-roofed dormer to left.

E (ANN STREET) ELEVATION: shop front with 2-part fixed display window and huge centre keystone to right, 2 doors to left and asymmetrical fenestration at 1st floor; small roundheaded window in gablehead.

Original Art Deco glazing combining horizontal patterning with Deco symbols in metal windows to all shop fronts (some obscured by modern fascias); modern glazing above ground. Grey slates, single storey bays with piended roof and large horizontal rooflight to W. Coped ashlar gablehead stacks with cans.

INTERIORS: modern.

Statement of Interest

Listed for its prominent corner position, unusual and largely intact façade with fine shop fronts, and historic significance of the former Northern Co-operative Society. Each shop unit was readily identified by its individual medallion for butcher, baker, grocery and pharmacy. Unfortunately the draper and shoemaker medallions cannot be seen but remain in place. The former bakery department links internally with, and remains a part of, the category 'B' listed Carron Restaurant in Cameron Street. The Art Deco glazing is repeated in the Carron Restaurant, and is described by McKean as 'the finest Art Deco patterned glazing surviving '.. in Scotland'.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77778062

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

• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)