Dales Warehouse including flats in southern part of building

Dales Warehouse, including flats in the southern part of the building, on Northgate (South side) in Louth. Formerly known as the House of Industry.

This is a former workhouse, later used as butcher's premises, with the northern part currently vacant and the southern part converted to flats. Built in 1791 with alterations dating from the mid-19th century and late 20th century.

The building is constructed of red brick with cogged brick eaves and a pantile roof with a truncated end stack. The main range fronts the street with a central carriageway and rear wings at the ends. It rises to three storeys with part basement.

The street frontage consists of a five-window range at first floor level. Windows have narrow segmental brick arches to the left and taller similar arches to the right with heavy sills, apparently part of a mid-19th century refurbishment. The first floor includes a wide taking-in door to the centre left, with 6/6 sashes to the left and 6/6 sash-type top-hung windows to the right. The taking-in door is divided with a plank door to the left and a louvred opening to the right. The second floor has a sash to the left, another taking-in door, two blind windows to the centre, and two sash-type windows to the right. The ground floor has three sashes and sash-type windows on either side of a carriageway entrance arch, which features stone impost blocks, guard blocks, and a pair of iron railing gates. Within the left passage is the basement door.

The left end of the main range is blank but with boarded windows on the first and second floors of the rear wing. The right end has a massive brick buttress to the ground floor with a sash window to each floor above. To the right is the front of the rear wing extension with similar sash-type windows, extending further to the rear where it is of less special architectural or historic interest. The yard front of the main block has three sashes on the top floor with a boarded window over the rear wing. The first floor includes sashes and a wide taking-in door, and the ground floor has a canted bay, door up steps and a sash set above basement level. The mid-19th century rear wing on the left has various windows and doors including two sliding-sash casements to the first floor. A further single-storey outbuilding range extends across the back.

Interior

The lower floors of the left part retain little-altered late 18th and 19th century character. The top floor features massive beams for a hoist, with surviving tie beams and some timber-framed partitions and plank doors. The roof survives in part, though some elements were renewed when it was felted.

Historical context

Under the Old Poor Law, individual parishes throughout England were required to relieve their own poor and set people to work. This system evolved through late-Tudor statutes and culminated in the definitive Act of Elizabeth in 1601. Parishes financed this responsibility by levying a poor rate on householders. By 1640 many urban parishes used the poor rate to shelter children and the aged in 'hospitals' and to employ those capable in 'working houses'. During the 18th century attitudes towards the poor hardened, with poverty increasingly attributed to idleness and indulgence. Knatchbull's Act of 1723 empowered parishes to offer able-bodied applicants a place in a workhouse as a condition of receiving relief. By mid-century, parish-based administration faced severe criticism, workhouses were regarded as economic failures open to corrupt practices, and demand grew for reform. Most surviving old poor law buildings date from the 18th century; there was no standard form and size varied considerably, ranging from converted cottages to imposing edifices.

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 inaugurated the era of the New Poor Law with administration based on groupings of parishes into New Poor Law unions overseen by three Poor Law Commissioners. Many unions found it more cost-effective to build new 'central' mixed workhouses than to maintain inherited ones. New workhouses accommodated seven classes of pauper, alongside staff, offices, a boardroom and waiting room. Four model designs were published in 1835 and again in 1836. The 'square' and 'hexagon' plans proved most popular, the 'hexagon' being best suited to necessary segregation. By 1841 a network of workhouses answering New Poor Law requirements extended over England, with 320 erected as a result of the 1834 Act.

Significance

This is a comparatively little-altered pre-Poor Law purpose-built workhouse and a rare survival on the scale of a small institution in a market town. The part to the right was upgraded in the mid-19th century but retained its window disposition. Alterations behind this side have formed flats, and the mid-19th century rear wing, also flats, is not of special architectural or historic interest. However the main structure remains intact and the interior of the left part survives, perhaps slightly remodelled when it became butcher's premises and residence. Beyond its individual rarity, this workhouse's significance is augmented by the survival of the post-Poor Law workhouse of 1837-9 also in Louth. Recent English Heritage research has shown that survival of an Old Poor Law workhouse in a market town on this scale is rare, and the survival of both in the same town is very unusual.