Wescam Engineering (Ernest Chambers Heel Factory)

This is a heel factory, later used as an engineering works, built around 1900 for Ernest William Chambers. Constructed of gault brick with blue brick and red brick dressings, it has a parapeted roof with front corner pedestals supporting spiked spheres. The building was originally an 'L' shape, but was infilled to form a rectangular plan by 1924. It stands two storeys high on a high plinth and has three windows plus a taking-in door on both floors to the right, and five windows to the left side. The original cast-iron framed windows remain, set within segmental blue brick arches. A door is located on the left side. The upper taking-in door features a protective rail and the original cast-iron hoist. The right side is blank and partially single-storey. A late 20th-century extension to the rear is not of significant architectural interest. The ground floor was likely used for stamping heal shapes from heavy gauge leather using substantial stamping machines, while the upper floor was dedicated to gluing layers of leather together, pressing them to set, trimming the edges, and buffing. Finished goods were likely lowered out through the upper door. Ernest and Enos Chambers were recorded as boot heel manufacturers in Raunds in 1906 and later linked to Manor Street in 1922 and Park Road in 1929 and 1940, likely referring to this single factory. Ordnance Survey maps identify the building as a heel factory until at least 1970. This is the best-preserved and most interesting example identified within the Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe Industry Survey, representing a rare example of a purpose-built factory with specialised uses. It exemplifies the expansion of the industry into towns surrounding Northampton at the end of the 19th century and is a remarkably unaltered survival of this uncommon building type.