SNN116957 - Historic Building Recording of the Former Boot and Shoe Factory at No.29 Victoria Road, Northampton, Northamptonshire NN1 5ED

Pre-Construct Archaeology Limited was commissioned by Stimpson Walton Bond Architects acting on behalf of their client, to undertake historic building recording of no. 29 Victoria Road, a former Boot and Shoe factory, latterly in use by Abbotts Signs, prior to its alteration and conversion to form 10 residential flats (C3), planning ref: WNN/2022/1180. An Historic England Level 2 survey as set out in Historic England 2016 Understanding Historic Buildings, A guide to good recording practice was required by Dr Rachael Townend, Archaeological Advisor to the local planning authority to meet a planning condition. The former boot and shoe factory was originally constructed as a purpose-built factory around 1875. It is first shown on the Ordnance Survey town map of 1883, although the buildings illustrated bear only a fleeting resemblance to the present layout. They comprised a small compact shoe factory at the junction of Victoria Road and Harold Street, a separate L-shaped range to the west in separate ownership and a terraced house on Victoria Road in the north-east corner of the Site. Frank Gibbs was operating from the buildings in the south-east corner of the Site from 1890 to 1896 and probably before but was no longer there in 1898. From 1893 to 1898, William Cockbill, journalist, occupied the terrace house at 29 Victoria Road to the north of Gibbs boot and shoe factory. The separate building to the west was in use by William Allen Dunmayne, shoe manufacturer, in 1890. Dunmayne had been replaced by Morris Brothers, shoe manufacturers, by 1893-94. By 1896, Wilkinson Bros. & Co., pianoforte manufacturers, had replaced Morris Brothers. The factory was significantly remodelled between 1883-1899 when the southern range was completely rebuilt to incorporate the formerly separate L-shaped western range. These works were presumably the consequence of a change of ownership and function, when after 1898 and by 1903 it had become the leather, shoe components and grindery (a shoemaker's material and equipment) warehouse for G.H. Frecknall & Co Ltd. Comparisons of the southern range on the Ordnance Survey map of 1923 and 1938, when it was still in use as a warehouse for G. H. Frecknall (Kellys 1940) and the present workshops, show that another building campaign focused upon the workshops took place after 1938, most likely fuelled by the requirements for infantry boots, shoes and leather goods for the armed forces during the Second World War. It is annotated as a warehouse on the Ordnance Survey map of 1962-64, possibly continuing as a leather, shoe components and grindery warehouse for G. H. Frecknall, although by 1975 it was in use as a surgical boot factory. The final phase of significant alteration works occurs in the more recent past (earlier 21st century) when the central yard was floored over to increase the floor area across the first floor and more easily articulate the offices with the workshops at this level.