Dalkeith Works

Dalkeith Works is a boot and shoe factory dating to 1873, with extensions built by 1884, for Abbot and Bird. The building is constructed of orange-red brick with stone ashlar dressings and has C20 concrete tile hipped roofs with deep eaves supported on shaped stone eaves brackets. It is an example of Italianate style architecture and stands three storeys high, with two-storey and single-storey elements at the right end. The front elevation has 17 windows, framed in cast iron with round-arched heads to the ground and first floors, and segmental arches above. Raised storey bands and quoins are present. Doorways are located in slightly projecting two- and three-window elements to the centre and far right (the latter being the pre-1884 extension). The right end features a two-storey element of two windows over a doorway in a moulded stone surround, and a small window, alongside a single-storey element of three windows and a doorway. The rear walls have brick window heads. The factory was built for Abbot and Bird in 1873 and remained in operation until approximately 1914 when it was acquired by James Partridge, a shoe mercer and manufacturer. By 1924, it had been converted into a printing works. The building is considered one of the earliest and most impressive boot and shoe factories to survive, retaining a fine external appearance, and was one of the first large factories of its type in Kettering.