Former Co-operative Store, Wellington Street and New Street, Barnsley

In the centre of Barnsley, on Wellington Street and New Street, is the massive faience-clad form of the former Barnsley Cooperative Store (1911, architect A. H. Walsingham, listed II but disused in 2001). Its aggressively baroque facade is strongly articulated with shiny buff and matt green faience, the latter having a buff body and appearing so odd that it could simply have been overpainted. The ground floor was ruined by the insertion of new shopfronts during the 1970s, but above this, all is intact, with numerous cartouches, some with female heads and one bearing the words ‘Barnsley British Co-operative Society Ltd’; a reclining lion looks down from the corner. While this is not a pretty building, it is a fabulous example of the external use of Burmantofts wares. [Tiles and Architectural Ceramics Society Gazetteer. Yorkshire page]

Reference           Tiles and Architectural Ceramics Society Gazetteer. Yorkshire page]