Wescam Engineering (Ernest Chambers Heel Factory)
WESCAM ENGINEERING (ERNEST CHAMBERS HEEL FACTORY), PARK 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:
- 1391031
- Date first listed:
- 23-Apr-2004
- List Entry Name:
- Wescam Engineering (Ernest Chambers Heel Factory)
- Statutory Address:
- WESCAM ENGINEERING (ERNEST CHAMBERS HEEL FACTORY), PARK ROAD
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Location
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1391031
- Date first listed:
- 23-Apr-2004
- List Entry Name:
- Wescam Engineering (Ernest Chambers Heel Factory)
- Statutory Address 1:
- WESCAM ENGINEERING (ERNEST CHAMBERS HEEL FACTORY), PARK ROAD
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
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.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
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.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- WESCAM ENGINEERING (ERNEST CHAMBERS HEEL FACTORY), PARK ROAD
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- District:
- North Northamptonshire (Unitary Authority)
- Parish:
- Raunds
- National Grid Reference:
- TL 00061 72935
Details
RAUNDS
1740/0/10016 PARK ROAD 23-APR-04 Wescam Engineering (Ernest Chambers He el Factory)
II Heel factory, now engineering works. c.1900. For Ernest William Chambers. Gault brick with blue brick and red brick dressings: parapeted roof with front corner pedestals supporting spiked spheres. L plan originally, infilled to become rectangular by 1924. 2 storeys on high plinth. 3 windows plus a taking-in door on both floors to right and 5 windows to left side. The original cast-iron framed windows survive under segmental blue brick arches. Door to left side. The upper taking-in door has a protective rail and the origial cast-iron hoist. The right side is blank and is partly single-storey. The large late C20 extension to the rear is not of special architectural interest. The way the 2 storeys are likely to have been used is that on the ground floor the heal shapes were stamped out of heavy gauge leather using very solid stamping machines. The second process is glueing layers of the leather together, pressing them until set and finally trimming up the edges and buffing. This would mostly likely have been done on the upper floor and the finished goods lowered out of the upper door. HISTORY. Ernst and Enos Chambers are noted as boot heel manufacturers in Raunds in 1906 and may well have been in this factory because they are noted as in Manor Street in 1922 and in 1929 and 1940 in Park Road (almost certainly one and the same factory). This building is marked in the OS maps as a 'heel factory' at least until 1970. SOURCES. EH Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe Survey, Site Report No.7. Morrison, Kathryn A., with Bond, Ann, 'Built to Last? The Boot and Shoe Buildings of Northamptonshire', forthcoming, pp.5 and 22.
This is the best preserved and most interesting structure identified in the Boot and Shoe Industry Survey as a heel factory and is one of a very few examples of purpose-built factories with specialised uses identifed as being of special interest. It is a small very carefully detailed factory and exemplifies the expansion of the industry into towns surrounding Northamption at the end of the C19. It is a remarkably unaltered survival of a very unusual building type.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 492720
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Sources
Books and journals
Morrison, K, Bond, A, Built to Last: The Buildings of the Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe Industry, (2004), 5 22
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.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 09-Jun-2026 at 22:04:02.
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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.