Offices For The Cooperative Wholesale Society

Office block built between 1885 and 1887 by J F Goodey of Colchester, commissioned by the Cooperative Wholesale Society. The building is constructed of red brick with stone dressings, standing on a two-storey granite plinth. Located on a corner site, it features a prominent clock tower. The structure comprises six storeys and a semi-basement, with eight bays, a turret on the corner, and a three-bay return on the right-hand side. Pilasters support a dentil cornice at the level of the second-floor sills. Brick pilasters rise to the sixth floor, creating shallow arcaded recesses with shallow arched recesses formed with banded stone and brick. The main entrance is in the fourth bay from the right, featuring a round-arched opening with recessed mouldings and panelled doors, topped by a three-light oriel. Flanking the entrance are channelled pilaster strips. A ground-floor arched vehicle entrance, accompanied by a similar oriel, is located in the left-hand bay. Ground-floor windows are square-headed, while first-floor windows are segmental arched, mostly with three lights and small panes in the top portions. The turret begins at the first floor, incorporating segmental arched, arcaded windows. Second-floor windows are paired with segmental arches, featuring small panes linked across pilasters by stone impost bands. Third and fourth-floor windows are square-headed, with similar glazing and stone lintels linking across pilasters, and stone sill bands. The fifth floor has Venetian windows with moulded and panelled stone surrounds. A continuous stone canted bay with arcaded windows extends above the main entrance, spanning the second to fourth floors, featuring enriched aprons and heads. The second-floor window apron displays a carved sheaf of corn, a spade, a hook, flanked by coats of arms. The cornice includes a Lombard frieze, beneath which are blind oculi in the spandrels of the arch heads; a glazed oculus sits above the entrance bay. The turret culminates in a rectangular clock tower with fish scale slate mansard roofing topped by a wrought iron balustrade. The right-hand return displays the words "Co-operative Wholesale Society Limited" within recessed arch heads. Internally, it is believed that a mahogany-panelled dining room and an assembly hall remain. This is the earliest building constructed by the CWS, situated among several warehouses and offices, adjacent to a now-demolished Midlands Railway goods depot that provided a direct transport link to the Society’s base in Manchester.