Factory Building (Bathcraft)

The Bathcraft Factory Building is a Grade II listed boot and shoe factory, now used for other commercial purposes. It was constructed around 1860 in two phases and features an L-shaped plan. The building is made of red brick with blue brick floor bands and has a slate roof. It stands three storeys tall, with the front facing an alley that leads south off Havelock Street. This facade has a four-window range of casements under brick segmental arches on the first and second floors, along with a taking-in door at the right end. The ground floor includes a door and a casement. The other sides of the building also have similar casements, while the gable ends are blank.

Havelock Street was laid out around 1857, and both ranges of the factory are shown on the Ordnance Survey maps from 1884, 1899, and 1924. Although it is challenging to identify small manufacturers from 19th-century local directories, it is noted that Clipstone and Whitwell, leather lace manufacturers, operated here in 1929.

This factory is an early example of a small three-storey boot and shoe factory built behind houses, likely associated with them. It is considered the best surviving example of its size in Northamptonshire, being slightly larger than individual back garden workshops but much smaller than larger factories of special interest, such as the Kettering Bedding Centre in nearby Regent Street. The Bathcraft Factory Building exemplifies the small-scale aspect of the boot and shoe industry that developed in Kettering alongside larger factories and home-based individual workers.