30 C O N T E X T 1 4 4 : M A Y 2 0 1 6 still a Burton, albeit with largely blanked out windows and unsympathetic corporate lettering. InAbergavenny, Burton had a triangular site, the usual green-black marble on the ground floor, one storey of stucco above, with the curly Burton signature logo above the first-floor windows. It is still a Burton, albeit with banal lettering (as with Hull) on the fascia, although the ‘chain of honour’ on the transoms – naming the towns and cities much more significant than Abergavenny where there were Burton branches – happily survives, as does a tiled advertisement.The architectural statement this shop made on the still-Victorian market town of 1936 must have been considerable. Whether small or large, all Burton shops had panelled interiors, perhaps to assure working or middle-class customers that they were entering an institution with gravitas equalling that of a bank or civic building. There were no tills but a cash office, where deposits and balances were collected by a lady clerk, much as you paid in a cheque or the money for your rates. On the exteriors, aside from the chain of honour, vents in the stallrisers were sometimes covered by logos in bronze. Parapets were often a feature too, although the company removed some as unstable. After initial research, in which local history or civic societies may well assist, a site visit will contextualise the building.Was this a site the firm acquired with a brief to develop a statement shop? Or was it a small-scale enterprise, taking over an old building or small part of a new development, as a Tesco Express might be today? Are there any remnants of its past? For a large shop, that may be apparent; for a smaller one, there may be emblems in stucco work, or in doors, windows and stallrisers. Most local planning authorities will have local lists. The London Borough of Waltham Forest revised its list in 2012–13. The L-shaped Woolworths at Leyton Bakers’ Arms was so included, as was the Burton in Walthamstow High Street, remarkably with billiard hall still above what is now a charity shop. But the once impressive Burton in Old Church Road, Chingford, was not locally listed by Waltham Forest, presumably because its features had become debased. On residential conversion of the former snooker hall above the shop, the elegant Harry Wilson gunmetal Crittall windows had been replaced in plastic, and the whole of the polished stonefacing was painted over in drab magnolia. As this article was being written,Waltham Forest was consulting on a supplementary planning document on shopfront design, which particularly stresses shopfronts’ heritage aspects and the desirability of conserving them. Conservation area appraisals and management plans should flag up the same issues. Irreversible changes to keynote high street buildings should be resisted. The National Planning Policy Framework (paragraph 126) gives encouragement to this, whether the heritage asset is recognised or not. Local planning authorities, it states, ‘should recognise that heritage assets are an irreplaceable resource and conserve them in a manner appropriate to their significance. [They] should take into account: the desirability of sustaining and enhancing the significance of heritage assets and putting them to viable uses consistent with their conservation; the wider social, cultural, economic and environmental benefits that conservation of the historic environment can bring; the desirability of new development making a positive contribution to local character and distinctiveness; and opportunities to draw on the contribution made by the historic environment to the character of a place. Nothing is so passé as what was in fashion yesterday, but buildings such as we describe are a memory of what was important in previous decades. Putting shops to viable uses consistent with their conservation should seek to encourage maximum use of the building for modern purposes, while also maximising the heritage value. Examples of this might be the retention of both external and interior features (secondary glazing, for instance, behind deco windows rather than replacement in plastic, and keeping, and if necessary moving, period light fittings); and the control of any new fascia so that it is in proportion to the building (modern plastic internally lit fascias being particularly discordant on a 1930s building). A simple but effective positive heritage contribution might be a small interpretation panel or plaque, costing some £500. Conversion of upper floors to residential is an excellent use of space and meets housing targets in a sustainable way. However, conversion of a nonstatutorily listed heritage asset should be accompanied by withdrawal of permitted development rights relating to the frontage, particularly to the fenestration, which so often defines the character of these buildings. Shopping was a major component of life in the past. It was a daily, rather than a weekly, chore, or pleasure. Because shopping was an interaction, face to face, between shopkeeper and customer, it was an important factor in social cohesion, rather than a mere commercial transaction.The buildings of shopping are an immediate connection between the legacy (what we have now) and the endowment (what they were for then). As town centre uses develop, we should be fully aware of the significance of retail buildings, and seek to make the most of them in the changed and changing context of our town centres. The fine Burton shop in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, in 2011.The ‘chain of honour’ was a Burton tradition of recording major places where they traded, contained in the transoms. (Photo: Jeremai, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licence) Chris Pond and Graham Tite are architectural researchers and writers.
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