Atkins Brothers (Hosiery) Factory

Hosiery warehouse and factory in Hinckley, built in two stages. The original L-shaped block was constructed between 1875 and 1878 along Lower Bond Street and Baines Lane by architects Goddard & Paget. A four-storey extension of 13 bays was added to Lower Bond Street in 1910 by Goddard & Company. The building is constructed of red brick with ashlar storey bands, dentiled eaves course, and a hipped slated roof. Fenestration is regular throughout, with pivot and sash openings.

The Lower Bond Street façade rises to three storeys plus basement with red facing bricks and ashlar dressings. A range of 22 windows features palazzo-style window bays set back in the façade. Basement windows have segmental headed openings. The second and third floors contain round-arched openings with roll moulds, while the top floor has square-headed steel lintels with a dentil frieze beneath the sills. The original nine-bay building at the south end is marked by a chimney stack and two cart entrances with decorative terracotta foliate detailing above. Both entrances originally featured round-arched openings of two orders with roll-mouldings; the south entrance into Baines Lane retains this form, but the north entrance arch has been squared off. A further cart entrance in the northern bay of the 1910 extension displays two orders of arches with roll mouldings, though a window has since been inserted and the entrance bricked up.

The return range along Baines Lane comprises three storeys plus basement with 11 bays of segmental arched windows with glazing bar casements. The rear wall on the east side of this range, opposite the chapel, has no windows. Behind the building, between the Baines Lane and Lower Bond Street ranges, stands a stair block extended around 1910 to accommodate a lift shaft. A courtyard separates the extended L-shaped Goddard building from a later 20th-century concrete-framed building to the rear, which replaced an earlier factory range forming part of the Atkins concern. The ground floor of this later factory incorporates a boiler room with segmental arched heads and brickwork contemporary with the 1910 extension.

Interior: The factory ranges contain wooden floors and cross beams with tie rods, carried on cast iron columns. The roof over the 1870s building is original, employing composite truss construction with timber raking struts and cast iron knees between collar and principal rafters, supplemented by iron rods and timber purlins. The roof construction over the 1910 extension follows a similar design. Evidence of powered manufacturing through line shafting survives in the form of end bearing blocks in the walls and holes drilled in the iron columns and cross beams indicating the former position of carriers.

History: The hosiery industry had become well established in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and east Derbyshire by the end of the 17th century. The stocking frame was introduced to Hinckley in the mid-17th century, and by 1791 nearly 1,000 frames were in use, with framework knitting becoming a full-time domestic employment. Hosiery became Hinckley's principal industry and remained so until the 1970s. The hosiery industry was the latest of all textile trades to become fully factory-based, a transition that continued throughout the 1880s and 1890s. This factory represents one of the earliest surviving examples of the shift from domestic hand-powered to factory machine-powered production. Although located in the medieval town centre, it also forms part of the Druid Quarter, a northwards expansion devoted to hosiery manufacture in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

The Atkins Brothers' firm traces its origins to 1722, when Robert Atkins (1702-1768), son of a yeoman farmer, returned to Bond Street in Hinckley to make stockings after serving his apprenticeship in London. At this time knitting was a cottage industry with wool supplies readily available locally. The family home originally stood on the site of the 1910 extension, close to the Great Meeting chapel, built in 1722 (listed Grade II*). The family were closely connected with the chapel, their place of worship, and the original Goddard building was designed with an arched entry providing access to the chapel from Baines Lane. The family tomb is in the chapel grounds. Elizabeth, the last family member buried there in 1891, was reputed to have been the driving force behind factory expansion, which included purchasing an orchard from the Unitarians to acquire additional land. The family was known for philanthropy and public engagement. John (1829-1908), Thomas (1832-1911) and Hugh (1838-1911) were founder-members of Hinckley cottage hospital, and the library was presented to the town by the family in memory of Arthur (1840-1882). Originally a partnership, Atkins converted to a private limited company in 1929 and became a public company in 1950. In the 1960s a significant fashion change nearly eliminated fully-fashioned stockings, causing redundancies, but the firm recovered with the introduction of tights.

Until 1990 Atkins continued in essentially the same business and was reputedly the oldest surviving independent knitting firm in the world. The firm was characterised by continuity of family management; the final family member, Tom Atkins, retired in 1994. In 1995, in its 273rd year, the firm passed into the ownership of Coats Viyella Plc.