Building record 1160/65/1 - 4-6 Dunster Street (Even Nos)

Formerly the Globe Leather Works (Formerly James Collier & Co.). A large, four-storey leather works built on the south side of Dunster Street. This rectangular plan factory, divided into three parallel ranges, is built of red brick with pitched roofs covered in Welsh Slate. Ordnance Survey and other maps, suggest that it was built c.1890.

{1} Former curriers and leather merchants works. Late 1880's. Red brick with stone dressing and parapeted slate roofs. C17 Low Countries style. 3 gables facing, the central more ornamental with canted pilasters and elaborately shaped gable, 3 storeys with basement and attic. 12-window range at first floor with further window on left over entrance door. Casements to left and centre, iron framed windows to right. Iron framed windows in second floor to whole façade and small windows in gable attics. Ground floor has casements to left and centre gables and 1/1 sashes to right with centre left doorway, all these last with stone moulded cornices, the doorway with stone moulded doorcase. Carriage entrance to far right.
INTERIOR. Iron columns and joists support the various floors and thee is a queen post roof construction. Upper floor has evidence of slatted floor construction, probably associated with drying.
The Globe Leather Works was most probably built for James Collier and Co., a firm of Northampton curriers and fancy-leather merchants established in 1878. The firm operated the factory until the 1950’s. It is a finely detailed building in the contemporary London ‘Pont Street Dutch’ style, with the allusions to wealthy C17 Dutch and Flemish merchants houses and warehouses being particularly appropriate to the boot and shoe industry’s rapid expansion. The Goad plans show that the west range was a warehouse and that the other 2 ranges constituted the factory with leather drying on the second and attic floors. The building forms part of the most significant group of buildings of the boot and shoe industry in Northampton.

{5} The four bays on the west side were built in 1887-88, the rest by 1899. Occupied by James Collier until the 1950s and from the 1960s it was occupied by electrical supplier EMF.

<1> Department for Culture Media and Sport, 2003, Amendments of the 7th list of Buildings of Special Architectural Interest - Northampton, (unchecked) (Document). SNN105076.

<2> ENGLISH HERITAGE, 2000, Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe Survey, Site No.52 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN105075.

<3> Prentice J., 2007, An Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment of the Former G.T. Hawkins Factory and Globe Leather Works, Northampton, (unchecked) (Report). SNN105794.

<4> Historic England, Undated, 4-6 Dunster Street (formerly Globe Leather Works), Northampton, BF103488 (Archive). SNN115578.

<5> Perkins, P, Whittaker, R and Denton, A, 2022, A Guide to the Industrial Heritage of Northamptonshire, p. 60/ Site 260 (Book). SNN113793.

Record last edited

Feb 4 2025 7:13PM