Listed Building: St. Michael's Road, Nos. 20-26 (Even) (1391336)

Double boot and shoe factory, now other commercial uses. c. 1890. Red brick with blue brick plinth and stone lintels and sills. Slate roof. 3 Storeys and basement. Plan of a pair of ‘semi-detached’ factories with central fire wall projecting above the roof line. 3-storey wings to rear projecting back from gable ends and various infill extensions. Front to St. Michael’s Road has a 10-window range at first floor of wooden mullion and transom windows with small panes, the window to far left now a taking-in door. Similar windows above and below with taking-in doors with cranes to far left and right on second floor and entrance doors on ground floor. Further entrance door to centre left. Basement windows have cast-iron frames. Prominent eaves, coped gables including the central wall above the roof line and gable end truncated stacks on the front roof slope. Gable ends are blank and rear has various doors and casements, some large. 2 firms of shoe manufacturers are noted as being here in 1896, Beale and Co. at No.24 and Wheeler, Hull and Co. and Nos. 20 and 22. This together with the mirror-image front and central dividing wall strongly suggest the initial construction as a double factory. The site is named as the Unicorn Works in 1899, 1905 and 1912, and in 1916 Beale and Co. are noted as being at the Unicorn Boot Works, so it may have been unified by then. In 1928 the buildings were vacant and by 1937 were a printers and a woollen warehouse, no doubt reflecting the beginning of the decline in the industry from the 1920’s onwards.

Record last edited

Oct 30 2023 4:14PM