Premises Of Cooperative Store

The premises of the Co-operative Store is a co-operative shop built in 1911. It is a stone building clad in glazed tiles and designed in the Baroque style. The structure has three storeys and consists of five by five bays, including one corner bay. The ground floor has been covered or replaced around the 1970s. The shop fronts feature an entrance in the corner bay, which is framed by buttresses on the first and second floors. Each floor has a three-light rounded window, and between these windows is a square cartouche with raised Art Nouveau letters that read 'BARNSLEY BRITISH CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY LIMITED'. This corner bay is topped with a lion.

The elevation facing New Street is symmetrical, featuring a central canted bay on the first and second floors. The first-floor windows are wide and elliptical-headed, while the second-floor windows are segmental-headed, with wide alternately blocked common jambs and voussoirs. Heavy paired brackets at the first-floor impost level support square bases for ball finials. There is a moulded sill band on the second floor that sweeps over the deeply articulated facade, with cartouches featuring figure heads above the second-floor window jambs. A deep, moulded, and modillioned eaves cornice supports a deep parapet that is alternately panelled and balustraded, with square piers separating the bays.

The elevation facing Market Street is similar, but bays one and three feature broad tripartite windows with round-arched central lights. The cornice extends over these windows as an open segmental pediment, with large and elaborate keystones that project through the tympanum of the pediment.

This building is a good and elaborate example of its type, having replaced an original structure from 1865 that served as the central grocery department. The Barnsley British Co-operative Society was founded in 1862.