Rising from the ashes

FIRE! Flames were licking through the roof of the new Co-op store in Spennymoor when Mr Curry, watchmaker, raised the alarm. In fact, it must have been burning merrily as the gas meter had been destroyed and the gas was still blazing into the grocery shop.

The Bishop Auckland Co-operative Society store, built after the fire of 1882. It is the building in the centre of the postcard

So what, on April 27, 1882, did they do to raise the alarm?

“Messengers were despatched in a cart belonging to Mr Reed, butcher, to the Weardale Coal and Iron Company’s offices, and they subsequently drove to the farm to hasten the harnessing of the horses which were, with all speed, attached to the steam fire engine, which, the fire being lighted at once, was about ready for action when it reached the burning premises,” reported The Northern Echo.

The opening of the premises on the postcard, from The Northern Echo of October 25, 1897

So, having jiggled about in a cart, caught the horses in their field, lit the boiler in the fire engine, pulled it to the scene of the blaze and then waited for it to raise enough steam to pump the water onto the flames, they were ready to firefight.

The report of the fire from The Northern Echo of April 29, 1882

Doh! Water! Of course, they needed water.

“Early information was given to Dixon, the Waskerley Water Company’s turncock, who, as soon as practicable, turned on the hydrant opposite St Paul’s Church, within 60 yards of the store,” said the Echo.

All well and good. The engine was ready to pump, the flames were now sky-high, but despite what the turncock said, there was no water coming out. Dixon plodded back to his hydrant. “On returning from the scene of the fire, he discovered that some malicious person had turned off the water, and thrown away the key, which, as Dixon told Inspector Fleming, was found, after half an hour’s search, in the churchyard, over the wall of which it must have been thrown.”

This is reassuring. If today firefighters’ best efforts had been sabotaged by a malicious person, there would be a general ranting and raving about a decline in modern standards.

But this sort of appalling behaviour has always gone on… Finally, after fumbling for 30 minutes in the dark in the churchyard, the water was turned on, the engine was in full steam, and the flames could be fought.

“The police say they have not seen such a fearful havoc from a fire for very many years,” said the Echo.

“The grocery department was gutted, and not a particle of property was saved.

“The loss, chiefly in stock, is estimated roundly at between £8,000 and £10,000 (that’s about £1m in today’s values), but both stock and buildings are insured to the full amount in the Atlas Company.”

The co-op’s first shop in Spennymoor was rented in Tudhoe Grange in 1872

And so the Spennymoor Co-op was able to start rebuilding – and its rebuilt premises featured in one of Memories’ postcards last week (thanks to John Heslop of Durham and Eileen Robinson of Spennymoor for putting us on the right road).

The store was part of the Bishop Auckland Industrial Co-operative Flour and Provision Society Limited which was formed in Shildon in 1860. The co-op spread to Tudhoe Grange in 1872, when the Co-op’s official history, written in 1910, described Spennymoor as “a busy, stirring town, with a somewhat evil repute”.

This is a little harsh as the 1870s were Spennymoor’s heyday: the town was ringed with collieries, cokeworks and blast furnaces, and miners were earning £1 a day. Better quality houses were being built, and in 1876, the railway arrived. The coop was one of many signs of Spennymoor’s stirring prosperity.

Within a couple of years, the Tudhoe Grange store was taking £350 a week, and bigger premises were required. The co-op bought land, in what was then called Beaumont Terrace, from the Shafto family of Whitworth Hall. A new store, plus drapery department, was built there in 1876, and soon sales were averaging £1,402 a week.

ON January 27, 1882, further extensions were opened by miners leader John Wilson, and celebrated by a “monster tea” for 4,000 people.

But just three months later, those premises were ablaze, the flames being fanned by the slowness of the arrival of the fire engine and the maliciousness of the person who threw away the hydrant key.

Over the next 15 years, with the help of the Atlas insurance company, the co-op gradually recovered in Spennymoor until, on October 23, 1897, it was able to formally open the last part of its new complex.

“At the rear, a slaughterhouse has been erected, and is claimed to be one of the largest and best appointed in the North of England,” said the Echo. “An overhead tramway permits of the carcasses being run from the slaughterhouse across the intervening space direct in to the shop… “Over 20 beasts and 50 sheep and pigs can be stalled in well fitted up hunger houses, and a novel feature is the provision of a destructor for the disposal of refuse.”

From The Northern Echo of April 29, 1882. Below, the attractive co-op built in 1923. Now it is Ken Warne’s supermarket

It was this remarkable building which cropped up in last week’s postcard of “St Paul’s Gardens”. In the past, Spennymoor has been a confusing place, with each terrace having a different name to its neighbour.

Hence Beaumont Terrace was next to St Paul’s Gardens although today, to simplify matters, both are part of Whitworth Terrace.

In 1923, the co-op once more renewed its building in Spennymoor, creating the current supermarket.

Quite why the store needed renewing after just 26 years we cannot say, but the current shop – currently occupied by Ken Warne’s supermarket – is an attractive building with the wheatsheaf emblem of the Co-operative Wholesale Society proudly and prominently displayed in its stonework. But therein lies another mystery: part of the emblem is missing.

The co-op’s wheatsheaf and the motto ‘Unity is strength’ at the top of the 1923
supermarket

At the bottom left of the wheatsheaf, there should be a spade and at the bottom right, there should be a scythe. A garland bearing the motto “Labour and wait” should connect the elements.

The only source we can find for this motto is the stirring conclusion of A Psalm of Life, a poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1838:

Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labour and to wait.

But, curiously, while the rest of the stonework looks practically perfect, “labour” and “wait” have disappeared, and Spennymoor’s spade and scythe are missing, too. All that remains of the emblem is the wheatsheaf, and all that remains of the motto is the middle word “and”.

The Co-op’s first purpose-built store went up in 1876 in what is now Whitworth Terrace

Have they been defeated by time and worn away by the weather, or has a more sinister hand deliberately chipped them off? Can anyone explain the missing elements of the Spennymoor co-op?

Just to complete the story, on January 20, 1968, the Bishop Auckland co-op merged with the Darlington coop which, on June 11, 1970, became part of the North-Eastern Co-operative.