Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire

At the Co-op

The things you see going shopping… I’ve noticed before some of the creative ways that various Co-ops have had with their store fronts, especially wonderful tiled ones from the 1930s. But now and then I come across one of an even earlier vintage, often showing what strikes me often about early shopfronts – that they were built to last in a way alien to most shopfitters and store owners.

Here’s an example of what I mean: the Co-op in the middle of Chipping Norton. Down at ground level, you’d hardly notice it. You just see a restrained version of the current local Co-op signage – plus the signs of other shops that occupy the rest of the building. But look up: an almost pristine stone-faced facade of 1890. No expense was spared, by the look of things. The whole front is done out in a kind of Renaissance revival, and when I say ‘Renaissance revival’ I don’t just mean symmetry, a couple of Ionic pilasters and some ball finials. This frontage has all that, but more: a lively frieze running along the top (beneath the balustraded parapet), a triangular pediment full of scrollwork and carved cherubs, another cherub balancing at the top of the pediment. Whoever did the sculpture put a lot of effort in – there are animal heads placed here and there in the frieze, and the cherubs, worn now, look well made. True, the lettering in the roundel saying ‘CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY LIMITED’ is lacklustre, but you can hardly see it from pavement level anyway.

A purist might well say that the decoration on this frontage is rather a hotchpotch – cherubs among reeds sitting on scrollwork…date stone and cherubs and triangles and swags all crowded together. But that hotchpotch is quite close to the spirit of the English Renaissance decoration of the 1500s and 1600s that this building is referencing. It always was a bit of a mash-up, but a charming and lively one for all that. They liked this sort of thing in the Elizabethan period, they liked it in the 1890s, and I like it too.

Loughborough, Leicestershire

The exemplary bee

I've noted before how bees have been used as symbols of co-operation for hundreds of years, and as symbols of the Co-operative Movement since its first inception in the 19th century. This plaque, which I came across on a building in Loughborough, no doubt marks the site of Co-op store. The motto it bears, 'Unity is strength', was also adopted early on by the Co-operative Pioneers, although they sometimes used the form 'Union is strength'.

Although this plaque is not quite as beautifully made as the one I spotted in Wiltshire a while back, it scores highly in one key respect. While the Wiltshire example showed just the hive, this one includes actual bees in flight. These long-enduring creatures, here, so the fancy lettering proclaims, since 1865, remain to remind us of their links with industry, cooperation, sweetness, and continuing pollination and life. Whether represented artistically, as in this Loughborough street, or in their living form, they deserve our notice and respect.

Corsham, Wiltshire

Being busy together

Bees and their hives have been powerful symbols for thousands of years – probably ever since human beings first observed communities of bees working together and first tasted the honey they produced. As well as standing for sweetness (think of the madrigal "Sweet honey-sucking bees" by John Wilbye and "the bag of the bee", icon of sweetness in "Her Triumph", Ben Jonson's most mellifluous lyric) they're also symbolic of industry, especially industry that involves working together. And that's why bees and hives have been powerfully symbolic of the Co-operative movement ever since it was founded in the 19th century.

So I wasn't surprised to find out that this plaque showing an old-fashioned bee skep, high above a shop window in Corsham, was put there by the local Co-op when they built their shop here in 1906. Whoever carved the plaque thoughtfully included some flowers for the bees too. A century on, there's still a Co-op in Corsham, but on a different site. However the concern for bees continues with   "Plan Bee", the Co-op's campaign to support much-needed pollinators in our gardens, market gardens, and fields. From this Arts and Crafts influenced plaque to Plan Bee, advertised on my pot of breakfast honey, the link between natural and commercial cooperation is still vital.

Northampton

Old principles, modern building

From its 19th-century roots in the Rochdale, the co-operative movement grew rapidly in the Victorian and Edwardian periods to become a force to be reckoned with on Britain’s High Streets. There were co-ops everywhere, and they were prized for their combination of quality and fair pricing, and also for their values – from ownership by the members and democratic member control to the support of education and community. These values, enshrined in a list known as the Rochdale Principles, still shape the co-operative movement today.

By the 1930s, although the really big expansion was over, co-ops big and small were still being built. The principal architects who worked for the co-operative movement, William A. Johnson of Manchester and Leonard G Ekins of London, were both enthusiastic modernists. The work of Ekins, for example, developed from an Art Deco not unlike the style of 1920s and 1930s factory architecture to a more hard-edged steel and glass modernism.

This co-operative store in Northampton shares several features with Ekins’ earlier work – the white walls with touches of green, the tall windows, the dark green plinth at the bottom and the stepped-back effect at the top. If it’s not actually by Ekins, it is probably the work of an architect who had studied his buildings. Whoever designed it, the building has proved durable. It’s now an arcade full of small independent shops, while the tiles of the street frontage still bear the name of the original owner, picked out in capitals.

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Here's another example of Art Deco tiling on a co-op, this time in Tamworth, which I blogged about a while ago.