Royal Arsenal Cooperative Society Headquarters Building

The Royal Arsenal Cooperative Society Headquarters Building is a large commercial property with a retail outlet, built in 1903 by F Bethell for the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society. It features red brick construction with terracotta dressings and a slate roof, designed in the Italian Renaissance style. The building is 2 to 3 storeys high with a symmetrical 21-bay facade. The ground floor has mid-20th century plate-glass windows.

At the center, there is a 3-storey, 11-bay range topped by a 4-storey clock tower. The clock tower has a terracotta facade decorated with fluted composite pilasters on each storey, a semi-circular moulded arch doorway set on composite jambs, and a statue of Alexander McLeod, the Society's Treasurer, by A. Drury, placed in an open-pedimented aedicule with composite pilasters. The second and third storeys feature raised relief lettering bearing the Society's motto, and the clock tower is crowned with a copper dome and segmental pediments on half-columns at the angled corners.

The first floor includes 2-light semi-circular arched windows with decorative spandrels, framed by segmental-arched moulded architraves with pilasters. The second floor windows also have similar semi-circular arched architraves. The bays are separated by composite pilasters, with an enriched console cornice on the first floor and a dentilled cornice with a scrolled frieze on the second floor. The outer bays, which are gabled and faced in terracotta, feature canted bay windows with balustrade parapets and fluted composite pilasters.

The two-storey, 5-bay outer sections are styled similarly, each with a balustrade parapet and a central scroll-pedimented dormer flanked by composite pilasters and an Ipswich window. The design of this building was consciously inspired by Harrods of Knightsbridge.