Listed Building: William Green & Sons, Cromwell Works (1391028)

Boot and shoe factory. c.1890. For William Green. Red brick with stone dressings and slate roofs. L plan. 4 storeys. 10-window range at 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors facing Cromwell Road and 5-window range facing Upper Queen Street with an impressive corner oriel turret rising through the upper 3 floors and roofed by a steep octagonal roof with lucarnes and an ogee dome with weathervane at the apex. This corner has sash windows with round-arched heads to 2nd floor and then sashes set in a rendered surround to 3rd floor. The main fronts have giant pilasters at intervals and the windows are cast-iron framed and probably original, except for the 1st floor which are mid C20 steel-framed replacements. The windows to all floors are under brick segmental arches except for the 3rd floor where the windows have a central brick mullion and flat stone lintels. The original corner office entrance is now blocked by a window but there is an entrance to its right and another on the far right end of the front where there are sashes and decoration above similar to the canted corner. The right end gable is blank but the left end gable has further cast-iron framed windows and a C20 2-storey extension with ground floor open arcade. Further extensions and north-light sheds to rear. HISTORY. William Green had begun his shoemaking business by 1877 and by 1896 he had built this factory known as the Cromwell Works. By 1923 the factory was much extended and the firm had become William Green and Son, manufacturers of ‘Grenson’ footwear. The firm is now known as Grensons and is probably only rivalled by Crockett and Jones (q.v.) in Perry Street, Northampton, and Joseph Cheaney and Sons (q.v.) in Desborough as a firm still making footwear in a factory built by them over a century ago. SOURCES. EH Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe Survey, Site Report No. 36. Morrison, Kathryn A., with Bond, Ann, ‘Built to Last? The Boot and Shoe Buildings of Northamptonshire’, forthcoming, p. 15. This factory is of special significance as the best example of the expansion of the boot and shoe industry to the towns surrounding Northampton at the end of the C19, marking probably the high point of the industry, and is the most substantial and amongst the best preserved of the factories in Rushden. Not only is the exterior impressive and well-detailed but the interior remains that of a functioning boot and shoe factory, built by the firm which still occupies it.

Record last edited

Sep 5 2023 2:39PM