The "restoration" of an Art Deco era Burton's store

Montague Burton, the tailor of taste. But, imho, not so tasteful these days on Long Eaton High Street.

I have just been alerted to the "restoration" of a Burton's store in Derbyshire. I know this isn't in London, but I fear this type of thing is likely to happen on similar sites here in the capital. Ugh – paint it black strikes again!

I'm here stealing/copying the pics from the link above to show the before and after, though the first pic looks to be from Google streetview anyway:

Hmmm... me no likey – Burton’s 1930's façade had survived, complete with the Burton logo at the top, for almost 100 years. Yet, rather than remove a layer of stone-coloured paint (see close-up below) and give it the Portland stonework a gentle clean, they've instead sloshed black and white paint all over it. I am not sure where the £10,000 has been spent. I notice that their second pic is captioned 'Burtons building revamped' which better describes what's happened here. 

OK, so they’ve installed some [fake?] windows, but it would never have looked like this back in the 1920s – hence, this is not a ‘restoration’.

They say that the building looked messy before – I say this was exacerbated by the mix of shops at street level, two of which had with ugly modern signage which, we can see, haven't been upgraded since the renovation. 

This next pic is Google streetview from 2022:

It shows that the building at that time retained a reduced but empty Burton store with serif letters on a red panel. Look closely to see that there's also a ghostly repeat of the 1920's logo within the black fascia above the phone shop, echoing the carved company logo at the very top of the building which would have been red. Here's a close up which also shows peeling paint and boarded windows, now revealed (or rendered?):

An alternative view shows that some lovely architectural details were also in place 2022, specifically, a branded metal ventilation grille at the curved end...

...and a foundation stone at the left corner showing that Stanley Howard Burton was one of the family present at the opening ceremony in 1935:

Burton made sure that family members personally attended the opening of each new store. Three more foundation stones can be found at this site – one at centre front next to the door to the phone shop showing Arnold James Burton was also in attendance and two more round the side flanking the entrance to Chalkie's snooker hall – one shows Lady Montague Burton, but the parked car obscures the one on the left side of the door and, possibly, another metal ventilation grille. 

I’m interested to see how much of the old Burton’s store is still in place today – perhaps, some tiles, mosaics or terrazzo are also to be found.

Back to the black – I’m befuddled how/why the decision was made to paint the building such a stark shade – it surely now stands out like a funereal eyesore rather than an elegant reminder of a bygone age…?

More about Burtons here.