Additions to the ‘famous Deco Burtons database’ have been few and far between in recent years. However, three new locations have just been added: one destroyed by war, one demolished, and the other still standing… hiding in plain sight! Read on to find out more.
Swansea
On one of many rainy days off work earlier this year, I made my way to the West Glamorgan Archive Service in Swansea to view a number of Burton related documents listed in their online catalogue. The archives recently relocated to ‘Y Storfa’ (The Store, in Welsh) in the former BHS building on Oxford Street. This is now home to a combined library and community services hub that opened last December, making way for the redevelopment of the former civic centre on the waterfront.
I found myself looking at an architectural drawing from 1931 for an Art Deco Burton building I’d never seen before.1 I hadn’t paid too much attention to the building addresses on the catalogue listings and hadn’t noticed that the address for this drawing was 7-8 Castle Street, whereas the address of the extant building is 21-22 Castle Street. Clearly this was a different building.
Now this makes sense, because the centre of Swansea was so heavily bombed during World War II that the three days from the 19th to 21st February 1941 are known as the “Swansea Blitz”.2 Another item I viewed at the archives was a photo album of the 1950s rebuilding of the city centre, containing aerial images showing the west side of Castle Street completely razed.3 Clearly this beautiful building had been lost in the war.
The drawing clearly shows some familiar elements of a Deco Burton building: the script logo, lozenge shaped window lights, steel window frames, and pilaster capitals that look similar, although not identical to any other branches. Lastly, at the very top of the parapet is a crest comprised of a shield and wings; a familiar motif seen on both spandrels and parapets of existing buildings such as Fulham, Kilburn, and many others.
This was actually just a new facade on an older building, and might not have happened at all. An earlier drawing shows the Burton shopfront being inserted into the older building. However, a February 1931 letter from Harry Wilson – Burton’s chief architect at the time – to the borough engineer and surveyor, states:
I have never been satisfied that it would be possible to reconstruct the above in a way which would be satisfactory and after very careful thought I advised my Clients that it would be in their interests to put in an entirely new and modern front to the Building.
Perhaps what was unsatisfactory was the lack of Art Deco details?
It was wonderful to view this original drawing that was likely Harry Wilson’s handiwork. What other treasures like this might be held in archives around the country?
Laid by Monty page for 7-8 Castle Street, Swansea
Bexleyheath
Anyone who has researched old trade directories to try and find former Burton locations will know that the company owned or leased a vast number of sites, with multiple addresses often listed on the same street. However, not all of these were developed into actual stores, which makes compiling a definitive list of Burton store locations extremely difficult.
One such potential location I had on my list for years was Bexleyheath. A 2013 memory posted on the Francis Frith Collection web site mentions going to “the Snooker Hall above Burtons”4, which is highly likely to indicate a Deco Burton building with the ubiqitous billiards hall upstairs.
Teresa tracked down a photo of this location in the collection of photographic slides of branches of Montague Burton, taken by retired judge, His Honour Nicholas Philpot, available on the Historic England web site:5
It was unmistakably an in-house designed store with those semi-hexagonal fans over the windows as seen at Lincoln, Newark – Stodman Street, and other locations.
This building survived the war, only to be sadly demolished in the 1980s to make way for the somewhat imposing and inelegant looking Broadway shopping centre.
Laid by Monty page for Bexleyheath
Epsom
Lastly, a new location that’s still standing; hiding in plain sight for all these years in a heavily populated location in Surrey, just over the border from London! Now I’m sure plenty of people have noticed this and just assumed that such an obvious location would already be in the Laid by Monty database.
It’s an in-house designed building but in the red brick neoclassical style with those ionic pilaster capitals, as also sported by nearby Woking and many other locations, including the beautifully restored Altrincham.
It’s currently a McDonald’s, which always seems fitting since the very first UK McDonald’s opened in a former Burton in Woolwich in 1974!6 McDonald’s was also the third most common occupant of former Deco Burtons after Halifax and Ladbrokes, last time I totted them up. I’ll have to conduct a new survey soon. Given the accelerating decline of bank and building society branches, I wonder if McDonald’s could take the top spot?
Notes
- West Glamorgan Archives – Planning file: Messrs Burton’s new premises, 7 and 8 Castle Street, Swansea, 1931 ↩︎
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swansea_Blitz ↩︎
- West Glamorgan Archives – Photograph albums containing photographs of the progress of reconstruction of the centre of Swansea after the Three Nights’ Blitz ↩︎
- https://www.francisfrith.com/bexleyheath/graham-road-school-for-boys_memory-425421 ↩︎
- https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/series/MBC01/04 ↩︎
- 13/11/2014 Daily Telegraph – McDonald’s amazing growth in UK (paywall) ↩︎
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