Building record 3738/13/1 - Harcourt Square Shoe Factory (Former Ward & Sheffield Shoe Factory)

A three storyed shoe factory is an L-plan, with five bays facing Harcourt Square to the south and six facing an unnamed lane to the east. The brick-built factory and an adjacent house at 5 Station Road, appear to have been built shortly after 1899. The factory has now been converted to flats and named 'Harcourt Mews'.

{1} This three-storeyed shoe factory has an L-plan, with five bays facing Harcourt Square to the south, and six facing an unnamed lane to the east. The 1884 and 1899 OS maps show narrower buildings in this position, grouped around a rear yard which opens onto Harcourt Square at their western end. The factory, which appears to have been built shortly after 1899, extends across the former yard entrance, which now occupies the westernmost bay of the south range, to abut the rear of 5 Station Road. The brickwork of this house courses with that of the factory, and they share the same distinctively elongated ball finial, suggesting that they are associated. No early occupiers have been identified for this factory.
The decoration of both main elevations is executed primarily in a smooth orange brick, which is used for the segmental window heads on the ground and first floors, for quoins and aprons, and for bands and projecting courses at springing level. The sills are of blue brick and the second-floor window heads appear to be ashlar. The windows mostly retain cast-iron frames with a four-pane opening section. The west gable utilises cogged brick to give a pedimented appearance. The principal entrance is in the third bay from the south in the east elevation, where it occupies a narrower than normal bay. The office may be indicated by narrower than normal first-floor windows in the two bays to the south of the entrance bay. The yard entrance in the south elevation has been altered in the domestic conversion but is probably substantially original; above it there is an original first-floor taking-in doorway with blue brick quoins and head and a wrought-iron crane. Paired tie spreaders immediately to the left of the ground-floor south windows relate to internal fixtures, possibly for line-shafting.

{2} Three storey brick built shoe factory constructed c.1900, home of Ward and Sheffield until the 1960s. Subsequently used by W Botterill (Gola) for additional manufacturing capacity for three years from 1967. Now converted into flats, the wall-mounted crane remains adjacent to the former 1st floor doors.

<1> ENGLISH HERITAGE, 2000, Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe Survey, Earls Barton Site 3 (checked) (Catalogue). SNN105075.

<2> Northamptonshire Industrial Archaeology Group, 2001, A Guide To The Industrial Heritage Of Northamptonshire, (unchecked) (Gazetteer). SNN104759.

<3> Palmer M; Neaverson P., 1992, Industrial Landscapes of the East Midlands, p.90 (checked) (Book). SNN3691.

<4> Bailey, B, Pevsner, N, and Cherry, B, 2013, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, p. 243 (Book). SNN111989.

<5> Historic England, Undated, Harcourt Mews and former Phoenix Model Developments, Harcourt Square, Earls Barton, BF103830 (Archive). SNN114621.

Record last edited

Feb 5 2025 6:15PM