The Co-op on Yarm High street, is now a restaurant. We believe this photograph to have been taken c1960s. Across from Poplar Court there seems to be a electrical shop…
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
The Co-op on Yarm High street, is now a restaurant. We believe this photograph to have been taken c1960s. Across from Poplar Court there seems to be a electrical shop…
When the Co Op closed, the building was bought by Kirkleavington Property Company Ltd, who are based in West Yorkshire. At the time they had several properties on the high street, and also owned the vinegar brewery site, and the field opposite the Shell garage, which is now the shops and pub. They split the Co Op into two units. One side became a butchers, the other a picture framers. Poplars dental practice occupied the upper floors. Chadwicks then took over the butchers lease, to create their wine bar eatery. When the picture framers lease ended, they expanded into their unit. Chadwicks sold their business and new owners took over. The right hand side of the building is the only single storey building on the whole of Yarm High Street.
I’d say late sixties, early seventies as it has the co-op cloverleaf logo
This was a large townhouse with a stepped central entrance (similar to the facade to the left) The butchers shop extension, to which Alan Tebbs refers, stands on what was a walled garden. The Poplar Court entrance (leading to the cottages at the rear) was once gated and a granite ‘cart-stone’ can still be seen in the cobbled opening. This was no doubt placed there, to prevent cart-wheels damaging the corner of the building shown occupied by Cartmell’s. This perhaps implies that this was a ‘regular’ route of passage and that the rear cottages may once have been buildings connected to some form of manufacturing, or storage facility, belonging to the townhouse-owner? Certainly there are some elaborate wrought-iron ‘ties’ in the cottage walls in the form of the letters ‘I’ and ‘P’. Cartmell’s are a long standing Yarm family, having several names on the WWI memorial. The shop, established in 1948, is currently operated by Paul Cartmell, who in the face of competition from the likes of Curry’s, Comet, etc, still maintains a successful electrical-goods business based upon a unique style of friendly, personal service. He also, somewhat surprisingly, sells the best farm-fresh eggs in Yarm!
The shop on the right was called Chapman and Cartmell and later Cartmell Electrics. I worked for Cartmells for 25 years as an electrician. One part of the Co-op on the right was the butchers and the shop to the left was the grocery store, I still have the workbench from the butchers and also a set of cast iron scales from the shop that were left when it was sold.
Was the butcher shop called Riggs? …
and are you the brother of Peter Tebbs, as I believe I went to school with him.
Arthur Robinson, from Canada.
Riggs Butchers was opposite this picture. Alan Tebbs brother is called Graham. He lives in Worsall village