VULCAN WORKS

VULCAN WORKS, 34-38, GUILDHALL ROAD

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1391016
Date first listed:: 23-Apr-2004
List Entry Name:: VULCAN WORKS
Statutory Address:: VULCAN WORKS, 34-38, GUILDHALL ROAD

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1391016
Date first listed:: 23-Apr-2004
List Entry Name:: VULCAN WORKS
Statutory Address 1:: VULCAN WORKS, 34-38, GUILDHALL ROAD

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: VULCAN WORKS, 34-38, GUILDHALL ROAD

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: West Northamptonshire (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Northampton
National Grid Reference:: SP 75569 60305

Details

725/0/10040 GUILDHALL ROAD 23-APR-04 34-38 Vulcan Works

GV II Engineering works, at present vacant. c.1875. For Henry Mobbs, engineers. Red brick with painted stone and brick dressings and parapeted roof. 2 storeys to Guildhall Road, and single- and 2-storey north light sheds to rear with glazed, pantile and corrugated sheet roofs. The front is a 9-window range at first floor of iron-framed (some boarded) windows with round-arched heads and hoodmoulds. On the ground floor there are carriage entrances to left and centre right, the office entrance to centre under a bracketed hood, and 3 windows to left and one to right of this which have pilaster mullions and are boarded at present. A further entrance and shuttered window to far right. The front is characterised by giant pilasters rising through both storeys to a bracketed brick cornice, though in the centre 3 bays they end at window soffit level thus forming an arcade to mark the main office entrance. The sloping site probably resulted in the unusual plan of offices, etc., on the ground floor with workshops formed on the first floor on a level which continues through to the rear. HISTORY. The Vulcan Iron Works were built for the firm of Henry Mobbs who were engineers whose productions include boot and shoe machinery. The firm remained here until the later 1890's when the north range became Phipps and Co. Leather Warehouse and the rest was vacant. Phipps remained in part because the Goad insurance maps of 1928 and 1956 identify their presence as shoe mercers. It is also noted that Phipps were here in 1961 for footwear components. The central section remained as an engineering works owned by Crossley Brothers. The successive Goad editions show that their goods entrance was at the rear with a yard entrance onto Fetter Street. SOURCES. EH Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe Industry Survey, Site Report No. 167.

This former engineering works is the best survival of the 14 extant examples of the type producing boot and shoe machinery as identified in the EH Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe Industry Survey. It has a well-detailed and impressive front to Guildhall Road and it is also an unusual example of a surviving town-centre engineering works. Its remarkably central position means that it forms a significant commercial and civic group with No. 27 opposite (q.v.), the entrance to the Theatre Royal (q.v.), now Derngate Theatre, further up the street, and with The Guildhall (q.v.) closing the view at the top.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 492705
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Other
Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe Industry Report,

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.