Building record 1624/12/1 - Leather Dressing Works, Victoria Street (Former Hobbs & Co. Victoria Works)

This boot and shoe factory consists of a two storey office block with an ornate entrance and a series of north lit sheds attached to it. It was constructed circa 1900. The decoration continues on the side of the sheds which have limestone lunnette windows. The sheds vary in size and some have been added later.

{1} Built in 1900, originally a mixture of one, two and three storey buildings. The single storey range fronting Victoria Road has stone lined, circular arched windows. The two storey brick office block has an elaborate stone frontage. Used in recent years as both a leather and a shoe factory.

{2} The building still stands, but is now in use by Rutland Shoe Company Limited. The structure mainly comprises red brick sheds, but there is a two-storey office frontage in classical design with is red brick with stone dressings. Film 1, photo 18,19.

{3} This unusually ornate leather dressing works of brick and Welsh slate roof has a one-and-a-half-bay two-storey office on Victoria Street, with north-lit sheds to the west and behind. The office front is executed in an Edwardian-Baroque style. The full bay has a two-and-a-half-storey limestone frontispiece, rising above parapet level. The entrance is adorned with rusticated pilasters, and a segmental canopy supported on scrolled brackets; there is also a small festoon above the door. At first-floor level, there is a more elaborate festoon, below a recessed name plaque with an exaggerated keystone. A further half storey rises above the eaves, with an attic window set within a semicircular rusticated surround, with an exaggerated keystone. Either side of the entrance are oculi with moulded limestone surrounds, and tall keystones. The first-floor windows have limestone heads, and sills with projecting brick aprons. A moulded limestone cornice stretches across the façade; it is surmounted by a parapet, and has a hipped roof laid with plain tiles behind. In the narrow halfbay, there is a wide roughly semicircular ground-floor window, with a moulded limestone surround and tall keystone. At first-floor level, there is a pair of windows, similar to those already described, separated by a limestone column. Brick pilasters with stylised limestone capitals divide the bays. The approach to the office entrance is flanked by two original piers, with moulded limestone capitals and a short curved section of limestone walling, which is ramped where it meets the frontispiece. There are grooves in either side of the piers, which suggest that they were associated with railings, and a gate which have been removed. On the front (southeast) of the capitals there is a decorative motif, which can be seen above the office entrance, and is also echoed by the aprons below the first-floor windows. This detail occurs again above the bay windows on the northeast elevation. On the northeast elevation a canted bay, surmounted by a pediment, lights ground and first floor of the office block. Beyond this, the factory extends to the northwest, as a series of northlit sheds, all with a roof covering of corrugated asbestos sheets. These were not looked at in detail, but there is evidence for substantial alteration. One of the sheds has four tall windows in its gable end, which appear to be original; one of these has been converted to a doorway. Further to the northwest, the factory is obscured by modem development. To the southwest of the office, the side of a north-lit shed extends along Victoria Street. It has five semi-circular windows, similar to that in the office front. The northeast window, closest to the offices, is smaller than the others. Although the office block, and the north lit range beyond, appear to be contemporary, the former is in facing bricks while the latter is constructed in stock bricks. In itself, this is not surprising. However, a 1916 illustration of the factory appears to show the building without the existing office block. In this view, the southwest elevation to Queen Street is shown as the front of the factory (SLN). Currently, the southwest elevation comprises the gables of three north-lit sheds. The third is larger than the others, and has three pairs of tall windows (divided by piers) in its gable end. The building has been substantially altered in the years since the 1916 illustration, which seems to imply that the this shed was not north-lit in origin but three storeys in height (SLN). There is a doorway to the southeast of the large shed, this seems to correlate with a doorway at the foot of the tower, shown on the 1916 illustration. Adjacent to this doorway is an inscribed brick reading: ‘W T Hobbs Aug 1900’, although an advertisement of 1916 states that the firm was established in 1906 (SLN). There are further blocked openings towards the southeast end of this elevation. By 1929, Hobbs & Co. appear to have gone out of business (on directory evidence), but a company called Bayes & Co. have premises in Victoria Road and Finedon Road. Although they appear in the 1922 directory, no address is cited. It is possible that they acquired the Victoria Road site formerly occupied by Hobbs & Co.

Description from record 1624/12:
{1} History:
1899 Not shown on OS 1:2500, XL.1
1900 Inscription ‘W T HOBBS, AUG 1900’
1916 W.T.Hobbs & Co., includes illustration of works. (SLN)
1922 Hobbs W.T. & Co. (KLT)
1924 Shown on OS 1:2500, XL. 1. Annotated: Victoria Works, Leather Dressing.
1929 No reference to Hobbs & Co. (KLT)
1963-4 Shown on OS 1:2500, SP 9470 & SP 9570
1967 Thalian Leathers Ltd. (ISE)
2000 Rutland Shoe Company Ltd.

<1> Northamptonshire Industrial Archaeology Group, 2001, NIAG Industrial Gazetteer, (unchecked) (Draft). SNN101121.

<2> Ballinger J., 1999, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Industrial Period, (unchecked) (Digital archive). SNN4.

<3> ENGLISH HERITAGE, 2000, Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe Survey, Irthlingborough Site 4 (checked) (Catalogue). SNN105075.

<4> Historic England, Undated, 30 Victoria Street, Irthlingborough, BF103706 (Archive). SNN114086.

Record last edited

Sep 14 2022 9:30AM