This interesting building has had different shapes with different enterprises. A hexagonal building with a turret like roof predates the present green copper domed building.
It was once a corner shop seen here with a turret-like roof, known as Purvis’s corner.
It was later Red Stamp/Thompson’s corner. Thompsons was the first supermarket in Alnwick. The Thompson chain was founded in Blyth by a miner injured in a rock fall. He started a grocer’s shop with his compensation. The business did well and there were once Thompsons supermarkets throughout the North-East.
Thompsons were called Red Stamp stores because you were given red stamps to save when you shopped there, just like Co-op dividend or Greenshield stamps. Customers filled a book and received 5/- (25p) when it was full or could redeem the books of stamps against gifts.