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Summary

Description

Circa 1885. Single storey with attic, 5-bay, broadly gabled former shop and lodgings with architecturally detailed S gable, windows, roof and interior destroyed by fire. Squared and droved granite courses. Coped, shouldered skews. Plain margins and projecting cills to windows.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 3-bay gable end. 2-leaf timber panelled door to centre, letterbox fanlight, plain shield to roundel above, flanked by plain, rectangular window openings. Semicircular-arched window with projecting keystone to gablehead. Large stone spur finial to apex terminating in ornate cast-iron weather-vane

N (REAR) ELEVATION: obscured by abutting building.

E (SIDE) ELEVATION: 5-bay, largely intact to wallhead height, irregular fenestration to ground, timber panelled doors to 4th and 5th bays.

W (SIDE) ELEVATION: partially obscured to right by adjoining Donbank, irregular fenestration to left.

INTERIOR: vacant, destroyed by fire circa 1970.

Statement of Special Interest

James Sheriff's Bridge of Alford Stores was at one time a thriving rural general store and emporium where "sugar and soap to scythes and cattle cake and accounts settled twice yearly at May and Martinmass" and which employed over a dozen staff. Built and run by the Sheriff family for several generations through to the 1960s the complex incorporated the neighbouring villa, Donbank, (see separate listing), as their principal living

quarters, the store facing the river and the post office to the rear with accommodation for the postmen and shop girls above. The front parlour to the right of Donbank had at one time an internal connecting door through to the store and was used as a ladies' fitting room for the resident dressmaker during shop hours. The store originally had 2 small, gabled dormers breaking eaves to the E side of which only the cills remain. Besides the social history aspects of the store, the architecturally detailed principal elevation facing the bridge over the Don provides the key visual element in the approach to the village from the south.

References

Bibliography

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