Look up as you pass the TK Maxx store on Royal Parade and you will spot four detailed stone reliefs set into the front of the building. They show scenes of trade and markets through the ages, with cloth at the heart of the story.

The building was originally built for John Yeo’s department store as part of Plymouth’s postwar rebuilding.

The carvings are in low relief, where figures stand out from a flat background. None of the scenes has a recorded title, so some details are open to interpretation. One panel appears to show traders arriving by ship and displaying cloth to people dressed more simply. Another shows an Elizabethan merchant presenting bolts of fabric to a group gathered around him.

A medieval scene includes a figure in chain mail watching the exchange, while the fourth has figures in classical dress, perhaps suggesting trade in the ancient world. Together they make a visual journey across the centuries, linked by the buying and selling of goods.

The subject suited a busy shopping street, and the stonework suggests that trade has long been part of everyday life. It also reflects a post-war approach to architecture in which art and decoration were built into the city’s shops and public buildings as Plymouth rebuilt its centre.