Description

1882. 2-storey and attic, 7-bay, roughly L-plan shops and tenement building with 14-bay colonnaded shopfronts to ground. Coursed, stugged sandstone with raised stop-chamfered margins to first floor bi-partite windows. Painted whinstone rubble and brick to rear. Fascia cornice; eaves band course. 3 former shopfronts with delicate round sandstone columns and floreate capitals dividing window bays. Pair of canted roof dormers with slated cheeks and finials. Single storey wing to SE forming L-plan with tall brick stack and blocked openings. Brick tower and pair of splayed external brick and concrete stairs to rear.

Predominantly plate-glass in timber sash and case windows with lower sashes vertically subdivided to rear elevation. Fixed casements and blanked windows to shopfront. Pitched grey slate roof with piended section to N end. Stone skews with beaked skewputts; rectangular gable end and ridge stacks. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

Statement of Interest

The Co-Op is a good example of a purpose built shops and tenement building of the later 19th century which has particularly fine detailing in the colonnaded shopfronts with delicate round columns and floreate capitals. Despite internal alterations the façade is unaltered and the arrangement of the 3 separate shopfronts is clearly readable.

John Buchan notes that John Tait, the local baker, built a block on Chapel Street from 1881-1882 consisting of houses and shops. It is likely that this refers to No's 24-26 as these are the only commercial buildings of that era on the street.

The most southerly doorway to No. 26 is marked as a pend running through to the rear of the buildings on both the maps of 1897 and 1906. The two buildings underwent alterations in the mid to later 20th century which included adding a brick offshoot and paired brick and concrete external stairs to the rear to access all the first floor accommodation. The ground floor of the buildings were knocked through to form an open plan interior. This work resulted in blocking off most of the rear ground floor openings. The upper flats have been further subdivided to form bedsits.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77780657

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

• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey