Ashington Co-Operative Society Premises

The Ashington Co-operative Society premises is a shopping arcade with offices and a ballroom above, built in 1924 by the architects Harrison, Ash and Blythe from Newcastle. The ground floor was remodeled as a department store in 1976. The front and stair hall are made of white terracotta that is moulded to look like tooled ashlar, while the returns and rear are constructed from yellow brick in English Garden Wall Bond. The building features a red tile roof and is designed in a Baroque style.

The street front has three storeys and thirteen windows. The ground floor has a tall plinth and a wide five-bay arcade, which was formerly open, now featuring shop fronts from 1976 in lugged architraves. Each end has a short bay with channelled rustication and panelled double doors, topped with radial-glazed overlights, all set in surrounds with deeply-inswept jambs and moulded lintels. The upper floors are marked by a broad band and have a nine-bay Giant Ionic Order. The first-floor windows are framed in architraves, and there is a frieze with the leaded inscription "ASHINGTON INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY LTD." The mansard roof is flanked by broader rusticated bays that contain a giant arch enclosing a tripartite first-floor window and a segment-headed second-floor window, below a frieze with a key pattern and a parapet that steps up at the centre. The lower end bays have broad pilasters, with windows set in linked architraves and a shallow-gabled parapet. The metal-framed casements feature diagonal glazing bars, though the first-floor windows in the left rusticated bay and the adjacent bay in the centre have been replaced.

The right return of the building shows a large boarded door that was part of the original covered cart dock.

Inside, the stair hall has a rusticated rear wall and a closed-string imperial stair with moulded balusters and handrail, along with an additional bronze handrail with scrolled ends supported by cast-iron standards, leading up to balconies. The interior also features a panelled dado, openings in architraves, and a panelled plaster ceiling. The second-floor ballroom, which is now used as a warehouse, has a segmental proscenium arch and an arched ceiling with patterned plaster ribs.