Denaby Main Co-operative Society – A visit to the Stores

July 1905

Mexborough and Swinton Times July 29, 1905

Denaby Main Co-operative Society
A visit to the Stores

Recently some extensive alterations have been made in the premises of the above flourishing society, especially in the grocery and off-licence departments. On Tuesday a representative of this paper and the opportunity of going over this big business concern, under the guidance of the courteous manager, Mr John Soar.

The first part visited was a grocery department. Here no structural alteration be made, but the spacious shop and be entirely relayed with the “Challenge” flooring. This, a patent composition, is supposed to have many advantages over wooden and concrete flooring, one of the chief being that dust has no chance to get hold anywhere. Minor alterations are the introduction of two small windows facing the street.

Taking a rapid tour through the many well finished storerooms, one is struck by the entire absence of dust in the flour stores and “weighing up” room. The stores are on the ground floor and the weighing up room on the ground floor. The flour is conveyed through 11 large shoots of a foot diameter to patent dust proof bins in the latter room.
A laboursaving device that attracts notice is the fruit cleaning machine (Duckworth’s patent). This consists of a wooden casing or three stories, so to speak. On the top is a tray, on which the fruit is placed; from there the food drops into wire netting cylinder, which rotates and passes through semi-cleaned into a similar single cylinder, but with a smaller mesh below. After being treated similarly this cylinder the fruit is turned out into a receptacle perfectly clean, which saves the housewife considerable time and lots of patience which so frequently occurs in the old-fashioned handpicking of currents, etc, previous to their being used.

Another feature worthy of notice is a mess and used in the sale of paraffin. This is stored in bulk at some distance from the shop, and conveyed through pipes to registry glass cylinder, when on the turning of a tap, it delivers the quantity required in its receptacle. This does away with the assistant handling oily measures etc.

The off-licence department is where the major part of the structural alterations have been made. The room is now child, both walls and floor, the counter had been put back a couple of yards, and the accommodation for customers is now ample stop from the county to the ceiling is a plate glass partition, at the bottom which is four serveries, through which the jug or bottle can be handed. The sellers are most commodious, no less than 52 barrels find accommodation on the barrel rests.

Here also is the plant for electric light, which the stores depend on. The dynamo is one of Mather and Platts, Manchester, and is of 105 V and 80 A, the motive power being given by a gas engine.
Before concluding this article mention must be made of “Ben” the custodian of the stores at night. Intending visitors in the “wee small hours” are certain of getting a warm reception. He certainly looks better in his cage than he would at close quarters.

The whole of the work has been carried out more satisfactory by Messrs B Wortley and Sons, Doncaster.