Building record 1160/0/289 - Meadows House, Artizan Road, Northampton

Former Meadows And Sons Leather Works. Meadows Hous, located on a corner site on Artizan Road and Henry Street, originated as a boot and shoe factory in the early 1890s, was in two occupancies by 1906 and was used as a leather factory from 1911. After 1912 the site was converted into an engineering works.

{1} Meadows House originated as a boot and shoe factory in the early 1890s, was in two occupancies by 1906 and was used as a leather factory from 1911 onwards. It stands on a corner site, with a long east front to Artizan Road and a shorter north-east front to Henry Street. Artizan Road was the first to be developed, and early directories give it as the address, but the office entrance was in Henry Street and this was used at least from 1911. Although the whole of the existing frontage is shown on the 1899 map and there is no obvious break in the brickwork or detailing, it is possible that the factory is of two phases. On the east elevation
there is a cross-wall, and a step up in the roof line and floor levels, between the ninth and tenth bays from the south. This could be accounted for by the slope of Artizan Road, which rises towards the north, but it makes the factory inconvenient to use as a single entity. The existence of two entrances and two taking-in doorways, none of them inserted, is consistent with either a factory of two distinct builds or a building purpose-built for dual occupancy (a kind of tenement shoe factory). In 1906 two occupants are recorded. Furthermore J T Meadows & Sons, who moved to the site in 1911, are said to have doubled the size of their
works in 1913, though there is no alteration to the building footprint between 1899 and 1924, suggesting that doubling was achieved by taking over part of the building vacated by a previous occupier.

The factory consists of three storeys. To the east there are nine bays south of the cross-wall, and six bays north of it, while to Henry Street there is a five-bay elevation. The brickwork on these elevations is of orange brick, with buff brick segmental arches and linked by flush bands, and stone sills. The windows are arranged in pairs except in the slightly wider entrance bays, which occur at the north or north-west ends of the blocks as separated by the cross-wall, and where the windows form singletons. The entrances each have doors with flush-beaded panels and open onto a stair, and probably an office; an office is clearly indicated on the south
block by a small stack on the front wall immediately south of the entrance, but in neither case are the windows differentiated. The taking-in doorways are both on the second floor; one is seven bays from the south, and the other is central to the Henry Street elevation. The latter appears to have been designed for a hoist beam, rather than a crane, from the outset. The windows have a distinctive form, consisting of small-paned hopper lights above a moulded transom, and what appear to be large-paned sashes below, but which in fact incorporate a bottom hopper and a fixed top-light. These appear to be original, and appear in a photograph published in 1916 (SLN).
On the south gable there is a three-storey privy tower projecting. This appears to be an addition dating from the period 1899-1924. The small windows differ in having orange brick heads to the front and blue brick sills to the rear. The rear elevation is much plainer than the front, in a less evenly graded brick, with pitched stone sills and an absence of ornament. Little could be seen of the various ranges to the rear. There is a three-storey projection to the rear of the Henry Street front, a two-storey range behind the northern half of the Artizan Road front, and a single-storey block behind the southern half. These probably correspond to ranges shown on successive map editions from 1899 onwards; some, if not all, are probably original. Both halves of the main range have had two windows replaced by a single large doorway, but in most respects this is a little-altered example of an 1890s multi-storey shoe factory.

<1> ENGLISH HERITAGE, 2000, Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe Survey, Northampton Site 95 (Catalogue). SNN105075.

<2> Historic England, Undated, Meadows House, 57 Artizan Road/80 Henry Street, Northampton, BF103584 (Archive). SNN113821.

Record last edited

Feb 17 2025 6:57PM