About Allendale Co-op
A proper village store serving the community since before 1874.
We are an independent Society which is run by its own, unpaid Board of Directors, elected by the members. The present board are:
- Chair: Alison Chappell
- Vice Chair: John Short
- Board Members: Chris Bulman, Ian Dunn, Julie Howard, Carolyn Milburn
- Staff Representative: Shirley Glendinning
Our Board meets on the third Monday of each month.
Our logo is the Wheatsheaf symbol with the ‘Labor & Wait’ sign, as depicted on our shop facia, and was one of the first Co-op brands.
The Wheatsheaf symbolises wholesome and fresh food and the American spelling of Labor, shows the Co-op’s support for the emancipation of slaves in 19th Century USA.
A brief history of Allendale Co-operative Society
Allendale Co-op was founded in 1874 in a small building that subsequently became the Dale Hotel’s wash house. It’s now a holiday cottage in the town’s square. Ten founder members each contributed £5 to establish the business and to promote the store along ‘co-operative principles’.
Membership was open to all, all profits were either to be invested back into the business or distributed back to members and shoppers were to be assured of trusted, quality goods.
Business at the then-named ‘Allendale Industrial and Provident Society’ grew quickly, which necessitated a move to larger premises in 1877. The new store was a refurbished former house and draper’s shop called Curtain House. That two-storey property stood on the site of today’s hardware, tinned goods/spices and fresh vegetable aisles!
Business boomed in the late 1800s; a shop boy was soon employed to assist the single shopkeeper and additional ‘shop hands’ were taken on. In 1898, the Co-op purchased the house north of Curtain House as their manager’s home. That property, together with Curtain House, provides the footprint of today’s supermarket.
In 1909, the Co-op expanded again by purchasing ‘JW Robson’s grocer shop’ immediately south of Curtain House. This became the Co-op’s grocery and hardware department and is today’s Allendale butcher shop. At that time the Co-op sold animal feed, grocery foodstuffs and hardware, as well as household and drapery goods.
The Co-op has always serviced the wider dale – a branch was opened in Allenheads in 1916 and a butcher’s shop taken on in Allendale Town two years later. A second branch shop was established in Catton in 1927. Deliveries were made by horse and cart across East – and into West – Allendale from the Co-op’s earliest days. By 1919, those deliveries had started being made by ‘Vulcan’ motor lorry and a ‘store traveller’ took stock lists and sample items to remoter farms. The ‘traveller’ took orders for subsequent delivery in this early form of a mobile shop. The mobile shop may be no more, but free local deliveries are still part of Allendale Co-op’s service.
In 1935-6, the Georgian and Victorian buildings on the current supermarket site were demolished and replaced by a single building that was to house the drapery department, greengrocery, fuel store and Co-op offices. Externally, the resulting building was very much the view that we would recognise today.
Further postwar developments saw refrigeration introduced and self-service introduced within the separate grocery building in 1974. Before then, any shopper had to ask a shop assistant to bring whatever item they wanted to the counter. Radios, televisions and wallpaper were also available to purchase in those post-war years.
The national shift to supermarkets and convenience grocery shopping in the 1980s saw Allendale Co-op continue to respond to customer demand. In 1990, the separate grocery building was leased out and all Co-op services were amalgamated under one roof as the single supermarket that exists today.
An 1880s shopper would have shopped at the same location in Allendale as we do in the 2020s; the buildings and the team may have changed but Allendale Co-op’s focus on trusted, quality goods remains the same.