74, High Street

474/0/10024 HIGH STREET 24-MAY-04 74

GV II Shop with offices and newspaper distribution room. C.1927. A.H.Lister and F.C.Bayliss. Plum, English bond brick with plain tiled roof. Three storeys. EXTERIOR: The street front has 2 bays to the first and second floors with 3-light mullioned and transomed casements to the first floor and similar mullioned windows above. There are 2 gables with substantial, decorated, rectangular rainwater heads to the centre and sides. The ground floor has a half glazed door to right with a rectangular fanlight, which leads to the offices. The rest of the ground floor is taken up by a symmetrical shop front. To the centre are 2 late-C20 glazed doors which are doubly recessed. To either side are show windows with Cotswold stone risers and timber mullions [also recessed] and to the far right and left and flush with the building line are 2 pier cases. These have their original chamfered floors with the illustrator R.P.Glossop's egg logo in brass featuring the initials WHS, and to their tops are panels of decorative tiles showing in words and images the subject matter of the books inside; SPORTS/BOOKS, MAPS &/GUIDES, CHILDREN'S/TOY BOOKS [at the time of survey, 2004, partially and most unfortunately covered by a plastic burglar alarm box] and TRAVEL/BOOKS. The rear has two cross windows at first floor level to the left and a 3-light window at right. To the second floor are hipped semi-dormers at right and left, that to the left with a fire escape door. At ground floor level the shop floor projects to join with an earlier outhouse which has a blocked arch at left, a 3-light window and double doors at right. INTERIOR: The shop floor level has encased steel beams to the ceiling. The roof lights at the rear of the shop which are shown in the architects' drawings have been removed. At first and second floor level the fittings shown in the architects' drawings are in situ, with the exception of the fire surrounds.

A good example of the quality of design and shop fittings produced for this company; the building and, most particularly the decorative shop front, remain in a very complete state of preservation. Kathryn A.Morrison, author of "English Shops and Shopping", Yale, 2003, regards this as one of perhaps half a dozen shops in the W.H.Smith chain to have survived in such a complete state and to show such quality.

SOURCE: Kathryn A. Morrison, "English Shops and Shopping", Yale, 2003.