25-29, FARM ROAD

A group of three attached bungalows at 25-29 Farm Road, erected around 1921 for C & J Clark, the shoe manufacturers. These represent workers' housing built by the company.

The bungalows are timber-framed and clad in prefabricated horizontal tongue and groove weatherboarding. They have gabled roofs with 'zig zag' tiles, probably asbestos, and are topped with two gable stacks and two ridge stacks of red brick. Timber casement windows are used throughout.

Each single-storey dwelling has a mirror-image roughly square plan with a projecting single bay at right angles to the rear which contains the bathroom and a coal shed. The principal elevation faces east onto Farm Road. Each bungalow has a central entrance door beneath a sloping porch canopy with tiled roof supported on timber struts. Most doors are original with a small glazed window to the upper part. Either side of the entrance are two-light casement windows. The rear garden elevation of each bungalow has a pair of similar casement windows. The projecting rear bay is built in matching materials with a slightly lower roof height. It features a doorway providing access into the bungalow, a timber window, and a further doorway leading into the coal shed, with a small window in the end wall. Each plot retains a low timber fence and gate to the front gardens.

Internally, each bungalow retains its original plan form and room layout. Number 27 retains historic joinery including doors, architraves, windows, and fireplaces with tiled surrounds to the kitchen and sitting rooms. Numbers 25 and 29 were not inspected internally.

The Clark brothers, Cyrus and James, founded C & J Clark in Street in 1825. The business expanded rapidly, establishing its first factory building in 1829. The profits generated were invested in developing the town. The Quaker background of the firm created a concern for worker welfare and moral standards, leading to the construction of workers' housing and buildings for the spiritual, moral and educational needs of the workforce. Clarks unobtrusively created a company town, building houses from the mid-19th century onwards.

After the First World War, prohibitive costs and government subsidy eligibility restrictions meant large-scale building was limited. However, two rows of prefabricated bungalows, including these three properties, were erected in Farm Road. Dated plans from January 1921 survive which describe these three properties as 'cottages converted from army huts'. A local authority valuation list of 1922 lists the tenants at that time.