Bygone Byker- F.Beavan store

I am strangely fascinated by old buildings.
After realising that my table for 4 was going to be too small for having the whole family over for Christmas dinner, I decided to go on the hunt for some extra chairs and perhaps table space. My nanna and I went over to the charity shops of Byker looking for a bargain. There's a large British Heart Foundation shop but I was more interested in the building and walked around it to have a better look.
This stunning Edwardian building has the name F.Beavan on it so I did some research. It was a department store opened in 1910, it sold furniture and was an ironmongers (as it says on the front still). The exterior has the original facade and stained glass. The Shields Road section was limited to two stories as it was above the underground section of the railway (London and North East railway).
After the war, the store struggled to compete with shops in the city centre and was then used to house low cost furniture (catalogue bargain shop).
In 2005 it became empty and sadly lay derelict for 4 years. Thankfully in 2009 it was taken over by Byker Bridge housing association. £3.2 million was spent restoring the building internally. The main upper levels were converted to 30 rented flats and the lower floors rented by the British heart foundation charity shop and another furniture shop. The exterior still gives away its past in a more affluent bygone Byker.