The Wool Mart

Summary

The Wool Mart is a former warehouse and wool market built for Louth Corporation in 1825 for the storage and sale of wool. It remains in commercial use as an auction house, with storage facilities for goods to be stored and displayed prior to sale.

Reasons for Designation

The Wool Mart, Kidgate, Louth, built in 1825, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Historic interest: the building is one of the best-preserved storage warehouses dating to the period of Louth's industrial expansion in the late C18 and early C19. The decision by the Town Council to erect a building for the storage and sale of wool reflects the enduring importance of agricultural produce to the town's economy at this key phase of its development;
* Architectural interest: the building is little-altered, and retains its open-plan interior and original roof structure. The external appearance of the building is strongly functional in character, with distinctive loading doors and a swinging hoist arm to the Kidgate Street elevation.

History

The town of Louth in Lincolnshire, often referred to as the ‘Capital of the Wolds’ has Saxon origins, and at the time of the Domesday survey was one of Lincolnshire’s seven market towns, with a population of 600. Its medieval core is still discernable in the town’s street pattern, and was bounded by the River Lud, the streets of Gospelgate and Kidgate to the south and Church Street to the east. Street names including the suffix ‘gate’ abound in the medieval core, which is signed from a great distance in every direction by the spire of the St James Church, completed in 1505, the tallest such spire of any parish church in England. Louth’s medieval prosperity was derived from exporting wool and grain, and its magnificent parish church is testimony to the wealth generated by agriculture in the region, and by Louth’s relative proximity to the east coast.
The town’s population was reduced by three-quarters by outbreaks of plague in the 1630s, and by the early C18 economic prosperity had understandably waned considerably. However, the opening of the Louth-Tetney canal in 1770 heralded a new era of prosperity, and the growth of industries related not only to the region’s agriculture such as malting and grain processing, but also activities such as tanning, boatbuilding and warehousing. Much of this development took place around the canal terminus at Riverhead, and the growth of the town eastwards, along Eastgate James Street and Walkergate.

In 1848, the East Lincolnshire Railway came to Louth, extending trade and communication links beyond those of the canal, and further enhancing the town’s economic strength. An expanding population stimulated the development of terraced housing and villas, churches, chapels, schools and a range of public buildings all graphically captured in the remarkable ‘Louth Panorama’ a two section painting by a local man, William Brown. The Panorama presents a view of the town from high in the spire of St James Church. It portrays Louth at the height of its development and prosperity, shortly after the arrival of the railway, set in its surrounding rural landscape, with the east coast seascape in the background. The structure of the town has changed remarkably little since the Panorama was created, and Louth has mercifully escaped the large-scale post-war redevelopment experienced by many communities in England. Louth remains a thriving historic market town with a high proportion of well-preserved C19 buildings.

The Wool Mart is a former warehouse and wool market built for Louth Corporation in 1825 for the storage and sale of wool. Wool markets were held in the building until 1843. It stands at the junction of Kidgate and Lee Street, and was the first building to be developed on the Lee Street frontage. A building is shown on the same site on Thomas Espin’s 1808 plan of Louth, prior to the development of Lee Street, and again on Bayley’s plan of 1834. Its construction indicates the growing commercial and industrial activity which followed from the opening of the Louth-Tetney canal, and the building is one of a number of substantial multi-storeyed warehouses to survive in the town centre, some distance from the canal at the furthest end of Eastgate The Wool Mart is shown on Brown’s 'Louth Panorama', along with a number of other multi-storeyed warehouses in the same sector of the town. Latterly, the building has been used as auction rooms, its open-plan interior well suited to the storage of items destined for sale. The building was first listed in 1997 and remains in use as auction rooms.

Details

Former warehouse and wool market, now auction rooms, erected in 1825, with C20 alterations.

Materials: the building is constructed or red brick with brick-coped gables and a pantile roof covering.

Plan: the principal warehouse building is aligned north-south, with a modern single-storey replacement building extending westwards at it southern end, resulting in an L-shaped plan.

Exterior: the Wool Mart stands on a site which slopes downwards from south to north, and is of three storeys. The east frontage to Lee Street has six windows to the two upper floors, those to the first floor with two-light casement frames set below shallow segmental arched heads. One opening retains horizontal timber louvres. The upper floor windows are of similar form, below flat heads set almost at eaves level. The ground floor has two doorways with C20 sliding gear and vertically-planked doors. There is a similar pattern of fenestration to the west elevation. The north gable has tiered taking-in doorways with vertically-planked double doors to each floor. The upper doorway incorporates a swinging hoist arm for raising goods from street level. A single-storey wing at the south end of the building is a recent replacement of an earlier structure of similar form, and is not of special interest.

Interior: the interior of all three floors remains open plan, with substantial original bridging beams, floor joists and floor boards. A wide, open stair is set against the west side wall. The roof is supported by collar and tie beam trusses carrying a single tier of tusk-tenoned purlins. The truss collars are dovetailed into the principal rafters and nail-fixed.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

468717

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.