Marking the 150th anniversary of Bishop Auckland co-op on Newgate Str

But exactly 150 years ago, this was the town’s principal shopping street and on New Year’s Day the first portion of what would become the Bishop Auckland Cooperative Society’s centrepiece emporium opened amid great feasting.

The co-op on the left of this Edwardian postcard of Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland

“The frontage forms one of the most handsome specimens of street architecture in that part of the town, being of dressed stone with carved caps,” enthused The Northern Echo, although its weekly sister paper, the Darlington & Stockton Times went further, saying that “as an architectural structure it is among the most beautiful buildings” in the town.

It's still there today, tatty and overlooked – even though when it was still new it survived a potentially catastrophic gunpowder explosion which roasted a cat to death.

The first outlet of Bishop Auckland co-op in 1860 was this shop in Belvedere in Kingsway. There is still a run of buildings called Belvedere at the traffic lights with South Church Road, so we presume it was in one of those

Bishop Auckland co-op, one of the earliest in the North East, was formed in 1860, and had its first shop in a house in South Church Lane (now known as Kingsway). In September 1861, it bought an old shop and house on Newgate Street for £720 – a lot of money for a lowly property which indicates the street’s growing importance as the retail centre of the south Durham coalfield.

The Bishop Auckland co-op's first premises on Newgate Street in 1861 look very similar to a couple of other buildings on the street that have eluded the developers over the decades

The retail part of the building faced the street and had a kitchen at the rear with living accommodation above – it looks to have resembled an elderly property opposite it which has eluded the developers over many decades although its demolition is nigh.

The co-op was growing quickly, and in 1873, commissioned local architect William Vickers Thompson to create the three storey building that was opened in “right royal style” on New Year’s Day 1874.

The "beautiful" Bishop Auckland co-op which opened on Newgate Street on New Year's Day 1874

Hundreds of people took part in a procession, accompanied by the brass band of the 4th Durham Rifle Volunteers, to the store where 700 sat down to a celebratory tea and listened to lots of speeches.

Warehouses were added out the back, but in the early hours of July 29, 1876, fire was spotted in the grocery store. Immediately there was immense concern because it was known that among the groceries was kept what the Echo described as “a quantity of blasting powder”.

READ MORE: THE STORY OF THE BUILDINGS THAT MAKE UP THE NEW KINGSWAY QUARTER OFF NEWGATE STREET

The presence of the powder has never been explained – could miners have bought a few ounces of it at a time whenever they required it in their pits?

“As it was thought the whole street would soon be on fire, women and children left their beds and homes in their nightdresses and the utmost excitement prevailed,” said the Echo.

Alarmed co-op workers tried to remove as many valuables as possible from the path of the flames.

“Thomas Simpson, the waggonman, Thomas Edmonds, general warehouseman, and John Bell, horsekeeper, were just in the act of pulling out a second waggon, which was all in flames, when a terrific explosion occurred, which lit up the sky and was seen for miles round,” said the Echo.

Nearby cottages had all their windows blown out and burning timbers and papers blew in, setting their beds on fire. Shop windows as far away as 150 yards were broken and, of course, all of the co-op’s warehousing was destroyed.

“The whole of the back premises, including the fruit dressing room, bacon warehouse, tailors’ workroom, sewing machine room, committee room, paper store, shoe room and tea store were instantaneously wrecked,” said the Echo, also giving us an insight into the commercial activities of the co-op.

But, miracle of miracles, the force of the explosion seems to have blown out most of the fire.

“The debris caused by the explosion in a great measure subdued the flames and prevented the fire reaching the extensive and handsome front building (which was only erected at a great cost about two years ago),” said the Echo.

And so our 150-year-old building lived to tell the tale. The fire brigade, under Captain Shaw, arrived just after the explosion and concentrated their hoses on the burning cottages while the co-op workers investigated the damage.

“A fine retriever dog, which had been fastened in the flour warehouse, bounded out as soon as the doors were opened, and was found to have been so severely burnt that it had to be destroyed,” said the Echo, “and a cat belonging to a person living near was found crouched under a cart, having been roasted alive.”

As soon as word spread of the drama, rubber-neckers arrived to gawp at the devastation.

“Large numbers visited the place on Saturday, but there was nothing to be seen except a huge heap of ruins, and here and there half-cooked ham, flitches of bacon, a couple of charred washing machines, and parcels of groceries,” said the Echo.

From 1874 to 1894, the co-op expanded along Newgate Street, with the first portion, built in 1874, in the middle

The fire did not prevent the co-op from expanding rapidly up Newgate Street, with the store of 1874 at its heart as it became the south Durham miners’ department store of choice.

The co-op became Beales, which closed in 2017. It has deteriorated since

The Bishop Auckland co-op continued trading until 1968 when it became part of the Darlington co-op, then the North East co-op and then, from 2006, the Anglia Regional Co-operative which put the name “Westgate” over its doors. In 2011, it was one of 19 branches of Westgate that was sold to the Beales chain of department stores which had started in Bournemouth in 1881.

However, after a rapid expansion at the start of the 20th Century taking it to 35 stores, Beales ran into financial difficulties. Bishop closed on January 23, 2017, ahead of Beales’ remaining 25 stores being liquidated in 2020.

The old co-op store in the rain

For the last seven years, the large store, with the 1874 building still at its heart, has been empty and deteriorating. Pre-pandemic, there was talk of converting it into 27 apartments or a 62-bed hotel, but it remains sadly derelict. Let’s hope the Kingsway Quarter, which is beginning to take shape on the opposite side of Newgate Street, can work its magic on this building that exactly 150 years ago was regarded as one of the most beautiful in the town.

Doggarts van outside Auckland House in Bishop Auckland Market Place

READ MORE: THE STORY OF DOGGARTS

DO people have as many fond memories of the co-op as they do of Doggarts? In recent weeks, we’ve been telling the story of the “Harrods of south Durham” (Memories 654, 656 & 659). It was founded in 1895 in Bishop Auckland Market Place and over the decades spread round into Newgate Street. It had 17 branches across the North East and the huge “Doggarts club” with money being collected door-to-door every week.

An anonymous reader writes: “How I’ve enjoyed reading about Doggarts where I worked full time for 17 years in my younger days.”

She (we presume) then lists all the department heads from the Auckland House central store that she can remember. However, as it was company policy to refer, like in Are You Being Served?, only formally by surnames, she cannot remember many Christian names.

Mantles: Miss Joan Smith. Mercery: Mr Hunter. Drapery: Mr Weightman. Boots: Mr Riley. Millinery: Miss Watson. Babywear: Miss Hammond. Fancy goods: Mr H Taylorson. Cafeteria: Mrs Murray. Despatch: Mr Butler. Canteen: Madge. The lift: Derek. Window dressing: Mr Pickering. General manager: Mr R Maughan. Personnel: Mr C Robbins. Joinery: Mr Elliott.

Our correspondent concludes: “One of the doors in the office had ‘Counting House’ written on it – I have never forgotten this!”

Doggarts closed in 1981.

READ MORE: THE OLD SHOPPING DAYS IN DOGGARTS

THE STORE THAT WAS TOP DOGGARTS ACROSS THE COUNTY

“I WORKED at Doggarts in Stanley in the summer of 1973 before getting a "proper job" in the civil service,” writes John Deacon. “I worked in the hardware department and used to get occasional trips out in the green van to deliver carpets or furniture.

“I remember vividly the front of the shop had two heavy wooden gates which were stored during the day in the basement. My first and last job each day was helping to remove and put back the gates to lock up the shop at closing time. Each gate had to be carried to and from the basement.

“At the other end of the gates was Fred Elliott who worked there for years and was a fixture at Stanley Doggarts. He was the maintenance or odd job man and a stalwart who was badly missed if he was not around to sort out a range of issues.

“I really enjoyed working at Doggarts and took a pay cut when I joined the civil service.”

If you have any co-op or Doggarts memories, please email chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk. We reported extensively last year on the buildings that are going to feature in the new Kingsway Quarter. A name that has regularly cropped up has been "Ted's Shed". Can you tell us anything about Ted and what he had in his shed?