This photograph taken in 2006 shows the old Co-op building, Billingham Stores on the corner of Station Road and Belasis Avenue.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
This photograph taken in 2006 shows the old Co-op building, Billingham Stores on the corner of Station Road and Belasis Avenue.
Picture Stockton Archive 
I remember the Butchery shop on the far left of the building – sawdust on the floor, well worn wooden chopping block for the meat, overhead pulley system for the money to be paid and change sent back from the cashier who sat in a booth at the back of the shop. My nana’s niece, Cora Lonsdale, worked there for many years as a cashier.She had awful arthritis and had such difficulty walking that a sedentary job was ideal for her.
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I hope the building is preserved and listed. The Sheraton family (shown elsewhere on PS site) lived in Imperial Avenue in Billingham in the 1930s and I remember my Dad, Ken, learned the ‘divi’ number by heart as a child and never forgot it. There were benefits for regular customers who quoted their Dividend number when they purchased there. Rather like the rows of shops in Albany, Roseworth, Ragworth estates, everything you needed was ‘under one roof’ at this Co-op I believe.
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I hope this building has some protection? If Sparks Bakery is worth listing surely this is too? the tiled frontage and 1st floor windows are all very “art deco”, and it must now be a rare survivor of the co-op movement.
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