82-86 AND 82A, RUTLAND STREET

This is a former hosiery factory and warehouse, now vacant, comprising three main building phases: the warehouse (No.86) of 1854-5, the factory (No.82A) of 1860-1, and the extension of the warehouse (Nos.82-4) in 1862-3, with a minor 20th-century addition. Built for J. Brown, Hosier, the complex is constructed of red brick with slate roofs and an end stack.

The buildings are arranged around a courtyard plan. The front range facing Rutland Street consists of a 9-window range, with the 3 windows to the right representing the original 1854-5 warehouse front, and the centre and left sections added in 1862-3. The rear wing to the right was the original warehouse which originally came forward to Rutland Street, and its front survives as the right-hand portion of the present street frontage. A short late 20th-century 3-storey linking block (2-storey to the rear) is attached towards the left end of this inner original front, connecting the side range to the end wall of the rear block, which is the factory range of 1860-1, though without significantly interfering with it.

The front range stands 3 storeys over a cellar. The entire frontage features 2-over-2 horned sashes at first floor level under fine gauged brick lintels with stone sills. The second floor windows are similar, though one sash has been changed to a casement. The ground floor has, from left to right: a carriage entrance, 4 similar windows (currently boarded), a panelled door with overlight, 2 further similar windows, and a door at the far right. The cellar windows also have fine gauged brick lintels. A moulded eaves cornice runs along the top. The left end adjoins Nos.78-80, the Pfister and Vogel building, while the right end is blank. The rear of this block has ranges of 2-over-2 sashes set within chamfered brick surrounds under segmental lintels.

The rear wing to the right, the original warehouse, has the same windows as the front under fine gauged brick lintels. One frame is partly covered by the back wall of the front range, and there is also a blocked frame in the continuation of the wall, now a partition wall within the front range. This physical evidence corroborates the known building history that the range to the right was the original structure that came forward to Rutland Street, and that the front range centre and left sections were built later in the same style. In addition to the sash windows on this inner front, there is a taking-in door on the top floor with an iron hoist. The opening below has been altered to a window, but the door survives on the ground floor. The left end of this wing facing the rear of the site also has 2-over-2 sashes in surrounds similar to the rear wall of the front range.

The factory range of 1860-1 is also of 3 storeys and has a shallow hipped slate roof. It comprises 4 window bays, with a continuous run of windows and taking-in doors only interrupted by strengthening pilasters. The windows are twice as wide as high and of 3 lights, 27 panes in all, with the centre upper three opening. The ground and first floor windows have brick cambered lintels, while the top floor has flat lintels. The bay second from the left has taking-in doors which are double and span the whole bay width, themselves glazed in the upper half, thus not diminishing the entry of light. On the pilasters are visible the iron plate ends of tie rods, the other ends of which are visible on the pilasters to the rear of this range. The ground floor left has a boarded door and window, possibly replacing a larger entrance. The rear of this single-room-thickness range also has pilasters and the same wide windows on first and second floors and similar windows to the ground floor centre bays, but is blank on the left and blocked with 20th-century work on the right. There is a brick chimney on the end adjacent to the vast and dominating wall of the Pfister building.

Inside, the factory range is a single room on the upper two floors, with a bolted 4-bay kingpost truss roof and bridging beams strengthened by later rolled steel joists. On the end walls on the first and second floors are heavy metal-plate covered fire doors with the name plate 'Geo.Mills and Co Ltd, Globe Ironworks, Radcliffe, nr. Manchester'. Fireplaces have been blocked or removed but lintels are visible. Narrow original stairs on the opposite end link the floors and correspond to the original plan. This shows the ground floor also as a single room, but there is now a partition wall dividing off an office towards the left end, this wall having a small hatch in it. The side range also has a kingpost truss roof and the hoist mechanism, including gear wheels and chains, remains intact on the top floor. The front range has wooden bridging beams, in part strengthened by later rolled steel joists, and wooden joists. The roof is not visible.

The building history is documented in the Optimum Sanitary Conditions Reports held at Leicestershire County Record Office, which show plans proposing a warehouse on the site in 1854, built forwards towards Rutland Street; a factory in 1860; and the warehouse extended in 1862. A fourth plan shows a single-storey warehouse proposed to be added in 1864 but this appears to have been demolished. J. Brown, Hosier, of East Royal Street was the applicant in 1854 and was also the applicant in the subsequent plans. J. Brown and Sons, Hosiery Manufacturers, are recorded as occupying the site from 1859 to 1886 and possibly after that when the site became multi-occupational (an 1888 plan also identifies the firm as occupying the premises).

This is a particularly significant survival. Recent English research on the hosiery industry in the East Midlands has identified the rarity of this kind of small factory where a number of knitters would work together for the manufacturer and warehouse owner rather than working individually at home. Some minimum heating was provided by the end fireplace on each floor, and the fire doors prevented any fire from spreading to the warehouse. This is a particularly early example—the examples in Loughborough date from around 1875 and Godalming around 1870—and it also appears to be the earliest known hosiery factory of any size to survive. Hitherto the earliest known example was the factory in St. Luke's Road, Nottingham, of 1866, although that example was powered. The vast Corah's St. Margaret's Works of 1864-6 was also a factory and warehouse but the factory has been demolished. This Rutland Street factory was not powered but was heated, and is significantly different from the earlier or contemporary framework knitters' workshops surviving in Kegworth and Wigston, Leicestershire, or in Ruddington, Nottinghamshire, because it is of 3 storeys rather than 2, it is in an urban context in an intensive warehouse and manufacturing area of Leicester, and is part of a complete complex with the warehouse.

This whole ensemble appears to be a hitherto unknown textbook example of a mid-19th century hosier with domestic knitters building a warehouse to store and be a distribution point for his wares, then building a factory to house and oversee the knitters, and subsequently extending his warehouse because of success in business. This survival is all the more telling because it survives in an area of Leicester where large and significant factories and warehouses often replaced earlier examples. Nos.82-6 and 82A Rutland Street form part of a very significant group of historic buildings including the adjacent Pfister and Vogel building, which dates from the early 20th century. Indeed, the visual relationship is particularly important, showing the contrast in scale between mid-19th century and early 20th century warehouses, one for hosiery and the other for leather.

This is a very good example of a small mid-19th century integrated hosiery factory and warehouse. The factory is of particular interest because it is a very rare surviving example of a small factory representing the middle ground between domestic production and the larger factory, and is the earliest purpose-built hosiery factory at present known to survive. It survives little altered and it is especially significant that the factory and warehouse survive as a complete ensemble.