Monument record 7198/0/71 - King Street Works (Chater and Son)

A three storey boot and shoe factory on the south side of King Street. This factory is built of brick with slate covered roofs. A datestone over the front entrance gives the date of construction as 1883.

{1} Three storey factory on King / Crown Street. Has an office frontage. Uncertain usage. Film 10, photo 21,22.

{2} Built in 1883, probably for Chater & Son, the King Street Works is a three-storey boot and shoe works with later one- and two-storey ranges to the rear. Standing on the south side of King Street, with a return elevation on the west side of Crown Street, only the principal three-storey range is depicted on the 1884 OS map together with an open yard, containing a few outbuildings, at the rear. The 1899 map shows a larger extension at the rear of the works on the west side of the yard, running parallel with Crown Street with a projection on the east front. This two-storey range is still in situ but is obscured by the later north-lit range. The latter, also running parallel with Crown Street, is not depicted until the 1924 map and, with a smaller two-storey range at its north end, filled the remaining area of the former yard.
The three-storey works is built of red brick with a blue brick base. Buff brick is used for the segmental and cambered window heads, and the ground floor sill band. The eaves, cornice and first- and second-floor string courses consist of moulded buff brick. The office entrance is in a narrow canted bay on the street corner and has a buff brick surround with a segmental-arched head of two chamfered orders. The corner is canted only on the ground floor, above which elaborate stone corbels carry the north and east walls out to a conventional corner. Above the door-head is a terracotta plaque with a monogram formed from entwined letters ‘C & Co’ (Chater & Co.) and the date ‘AD·1883’.
The five-bay, three-storey King Street elevation has had the original ground floor mostly replaced with relatively recent timber garage-type doors. The OS 1:500 plan shows that the goods entrance for this factory was via the yard at the rear, which may account for the absence of taking-in doorways in the King Street elevation. The broader bay at the east end of the range was occupied by the office. This arrangement is emphasised by the fenestration of paired small windows in the working areas and larger tripartite sashes in the office bay. Judging by the fenestration of the two-bay Crown Street elevation, the stair to the office rises in the south-east corner, where the first-floor window is set slightly higher than normal and the office occupies the rest of the space. The roof has been renewed with concrete tiles removing any evidence for the position of stacks.
A two-storey rear range, depicted on the 1899 map, survives along the western side of the plot, but is largely obscured from view by later additions in the former yard to the east. Chief among these is a single-storey north-lit range of three sheds, all with basements, linked to the original works by a two-storey range, giving four gables in all on the Crown Street elevation. As the colour of the brickwork, the coursing and the fenestration does not change between the one- and two-storey sections they were probably built as a single phase. The two-storey section incorporated a goods entrance, shown on the 1924 map but now obscured by a modern roller-shutter door, to compensate for the loss of the yard behind the original range. Unusually, for north-lit sheds, the range has a basement storey lit by windows with flat stone heads. Otherwise the sheds are conventional in appearance with cast-iron window frames, including small lights in the gables, and slate-covered roofs.

<1> Ballinger J., 1999, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Industrial Period, (unchecked) (Digital archive). SNN4.

<2> ENGLISH HERITAGE, 2000, Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe Survey, Kettering site 26 (checked) (Catalogue). SNN105075.

<3> Historic England, 24 King Street, Kettering, BF103561 (Archive). SNN114942.

<4> Bellamy B, 1993-4, Boot and Shoe factories in Kettering, P30 (Photographs). SNN111256.

Record last edited

Feb 5 2025 6:15PM