A Bury-based eyewear company has discovered the history of its landmark building after appealing for information from the public.

Specscart located in a distinctive two-storey building on the corner of Union Street in the town centre launched an appeal earlier this year to help fill in the timeline blanks of the building.

Specscart runs its multi-million-pound global retail and online business from the landmark building.

Read more: Plans for Bury lakeside café with decking submitted

The company will be starting a £100,000 upgrade of the building to secure its future, however thanks to members of the public, they have begun piecing together its history.

Specscart founder and managing director Sid Sethi said: “We had people coming into the shop and telling us about their memories of the building going back decades and our email had a steady stream of lovely old photographs and historic titbits.

“It’s been lovely to hear everyone’s stories and see the old black and white photographs from yesteryear.

“We’re so grateful to everyone who took the time and trouble to get in touch and help us to learn more about what’s gone on in this building’s past as we move it into the future.”

Read more: Oldham man becomes face of campaign after losing partner Frankie Hough

With help from Facebook group Bury Olden Days, Bury Libraries and Archives and an anonymous local history buff who scoured public records, archived copies of the Bury Times and Census information, there have been some surprising revelations.

Specscart has discovered that their building also had an alternative address of 40 Fleet Street, and their current premises now stand on what used to be the White Horse Hotel before it was demolished in the 1890s and rebuilt from scratch.

The site which was once a coaching inn and pub saw colourful landlords and landladies facing bankruptcy, accusations of assault and law breaking.

Its stables would be busy with horses resting, eating and being made ready to take travellers on their next leg of their coach journey.

Read more: Charity football match returning to Radcliffe FC

The building still retains many of the original architectural features which include the staircase’s Art Deco style tiles, the stained glass and quarry tiles in the shop entrance, the 10-ft tall double wooden doors that open out on to Union Street, leaded windows, mint-condition decorative plasterwork reliefs of a portcullis, Lancashire Rose and Scottish thistle and elaborate ceiling cornicing.

It also still contains banking paraphernalia and equipment from its past life as a bank including the dumbwaiter, the bank vault with a heavy 20cm thick door and the Chubb safe which is the size of a household door.

Specscart 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 again 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.