14, Freer Street

This is an early 19th century house with a historic lorinery workshop located to the rear. The building is constructed of red Flemish bond brick, with painted stone dressings, and a plain slate roof. It is three storeys high, with three bays to the front, and features a gable end stack to the left, with an original stack to the right, now removed. The front façade exhibits a symmetrical classical style, with 6/6 sash windows to the ground and first floors, which have painted stone sills and bracketed lintels. The second floor originally contained smaller square windows with plain stone lintels and sills, but these were blocked at the time of a survey in 2004. A central doorway on the ground floor has an elaborate console and projecting lintel. The left-hand ground floor window has been converted into a doorway. The reveals to the façade are blank.

Internally, cornices are present on the front rooms of the ground floor, and a fireplace remains in one ground floor room. An open string staircase features moulded tread ends on the lowest flight, although the newel and balustrade have been removed.

To the rear of the property, a single-storey red brick workshop ranges extend around the southwest side and the rear of the courtyard. A blocked window within the southwest wall is defined by a segmental brick arch. The courtyard appears to have been roofed at a later date, and a hearth was constructed there. The workshops have brick floors.

The site’s history reveals its original use by a harness manufacturer, followed by a manufacturer of harness ornamentation, and later in the 20th century a workshop producing purse and handbag catches. This illustrates the shifting focus of the leather industry in Walsall from the 19th to the 20th centuries, moving from equestrian goods to ‘fancy goods’ as demand declined, particularly after World War I.

14 Freer Street is a notable and rare survival of the Walsall leather industry, representing an early phase where owner’s accommodation and workshop were combined on the same site. The presence of hearths within the workshop is of particular interest.