IN last week’s Looking Back supplement we featured the Co-op Emporium in Blackburn, now the town’s library, which created a lot of interest among readers.

In the interest of fairness we have gone back into the archives and found this photo of the main Co-op in Darwen on School Street. We don’t have an exact date for the picture but judging by the cars, it was possibly taken in the mid 1960s.

Opened in 1866, the School Street premises were extensive - it was Darwen’s largest retail store. But the arrival of the supermarkets and the changing face of retail meant that custom dwindled and by the mid-1980s the impressive facade was boarded up. It would be destroyed in a fire in 1989.