Hi smiley1 and welcome to the forum.
I knew this safe was referred to as the milk safe but didn’t know it was specially made for the co-op. I have one of these and have also wondered on its original intended use. It’s easy to speculate that it was in an environment where wet or flooding could occur. The fact that English safes are quite rare with round doors suggests that it might have been produced for a specific purpose, that together the fact that its only a single skin albeit very thick. So further speculation – perhaps it was already in a secure location and housed some controlled item and/or record i.e. lead seals and crimps or ammunition etc. I sure someone will have the answers.
