This building once housed a shop owned by James Leslie Newbigin chemist and druggist.
Chemists kept supplies of ingredients and compounded medicines according to the doctor’s prescription in the shop. Toiletries and other medical goods could also be purchased.
Potass was a sparkling acid beverage composed of water and nitrate salts and supposed to have medicinal virtues.
Lithia water was pure spring water containing trace levels of lithium.
The chemists shop closed around 1980. The shop fittings and old apothecary jars were bought at auction by the US pharmaceutical company Sterling Winthrop and were installed in the reception area of their new Alnwick Research Centre. The research centre is still operating and is now Quotient Sciences on Taylor Drive.