A Bury-based eyewear company is calling for help before it spends £100,000 on a transformation of its ‘landmark building’.
Specscart is looking for help to piece together the history of their town centre headquarters, on the corner of Union Street, which they believe could be more than a century old.
The business is undergoing a major upgrade of the premises and, during construction, some of the historic building’s architectural features have been rediscovered.
Specscart founder and managing director Sid Sethi said: “We are the custodians and guardians of this lovely building, in the heart of Bury, for the next 100 years so we’d love to know what its history was over the 100 years just gone.
“There are some beautiful original details - like the Art Deco style tiles running along our staircase, the stained glass and quarry tiles in the shop entrance, and the 10-ft tall double wooden doors that open out onto Union Street – which give Specscart real charm.”
Other features they discovered included leaded windows, mint-condition decorative plasterwork reliefs of a portcullis, Lancashire Rose and Scottish thistle, and elaborate decorative ceiling cornice.
The company has already invested £60,000 to transform the first floor into office space and build a seven-day-a-week optical lab from scratch.
The next phase will include making the basement watertight so it can be used as a stockroom and warehouse, transforming the vacant top floor into an art studio for photography, video, and graphics, and hiring six extra staff.
Sid added: “We’re embarking on a new chapter for this much-loved building but we want to know what’s gone on in its past as we move it into the future.”
Specscart bought the heritage building from the Diocese of Manchester in 2021 and says they are confident it’s at least a century old.
They have been able to trace the history of the building back to the 1980s during which time it was a Williams and Glyn’s Bank, then Royal Bank of Scotland, bank branch.
There is a still-working miniature lift, now used by Specscart staff to move packaging materials up to the glasses dispatch hub.
The walk-in bank vault, complete with a heavy 20cm thick door with steel pins running through it, is completely intact in the basement.
A Chubb safe, which is the size of a household door and has dual key locking, sits outside Sid’s office and is still keeping valuable things safe by storing shop keys for each of Specscart’s three city stores.
But pre-1980s, the Specscart team have drawn a blank – which is why they’ve launched an appeal for help from the people of Bury to piece together the building’s first 50 years of existence.
If you can help trace the history of the Specscart headquarters then email historymystery@specscart.co.uk
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