20-26, ST MICHAELS ROAD
20-26, ST MICHAELS 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:
- 1391336
- Date first listed:
- 23-Apr-2004
- List Entry Name:
- 20-26, ST MICHAELS ROAD
- Statutory Address:
- 20-26, ST MICHAELS ROAD
Location
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1391336
- Date first listed:
- 23-Apr-2004
- List Entry Name:
- 20-26, ST MICHAELS ROAD
- Statutory Address 1:
- 20-26, ST MICHAELS 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:
- 20-26, ST MICHAELS 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 75866 60873
Details
725/0/10052 ST MICHAEL'S ROAD 20-26
GV II Double boot and shoe factory, now other commercial uses. c.1890. Red brick with blue brick plinth and stone lintels and sills. Slate roof. 3 storeys and basement.Plan of a pair of 'semi-detached' factories with central fire wall projecting above the roof line. 3-storey wings to rear projecting back from gable ends and various infill extensions. Front to St.Michael's Road has a 10-window range at first floor of wooden mullion and transom windows with small panes, the window to far left now a taking-in door. Similar windows above and below with taking-in doors with cranes to far left and right on second floor and entrance doors on ground floor. Further entrance door to centre left. Basement windows have cast-iron frames. Prominent eaves, coped gables including the central wall above the roof line and gable end truncated stacks on the front roof slope. Gable ends are blank and rear has various doors and casements, some large. HISTORY. 2 firms of shoe manufacturers are noted as being here in 1896, Beale and Co. at No.24 and Wheeler, Hull and Co. at Nos.20 and 22. This together with the mirror-image front and central dividing wall strongly suggest the initial construction as a double factory. The site is named as the Unicorn works in 1899, 1905, and 1912, and in 1916 Beale and Co. are noted as being at the Unicorn Boot Works, so it may have been unified by then. In 1928 the buildings were vacant and by 1937 were a printers and a woollen warehouse, no doubt reflecting the beginning of the decline in the industry from the 1920's onwards. SOURCES. EH Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe Survey, Site Report No.46. Morrison, Kathryn A., with Bond, Ann, 'Built to Last? The Boot and Shoe Buildings of Northamptonshire', forthcoming, pp.4 and 14. Menuge, Adam, 'Technology and Tradition: the English Heritage Survey of the Northamptonshire boot and shoe industry', TICCIH2000 Congress Papers. pp.106-7.
This works is a little-altered unusual survival of the 'double factory'. These were spec-built and where a regular plot, as here, permitted, designed like semis. As well of special interest in itself the works forms part of the most significant group of buildings of the boot and shoe industry in Northampton, the centre of the industry, including the former G. T. Hawkins factory opposite (q.v.) and the Trickers factory (q.v.) further down St.Michael's Road.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 491582
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Sources
Books and journals
Morrison, K, Bond, A, Built to Last: The Buildings of the Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe Industry, (2004)
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 07-Jun-2026 at 23:23:28.
Download a full scale map (PDF)End of official list entry
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