An application has been received to list 26 Titchfield Street in Hucknall. 26 and 28 Titchfield Street stand on the line of a proposed new road and it is likely they will be the subject of a compulsory purchase order and subsequently demolished. Number 28 is being dealt with as a separate application. The building stands close to the centre of Hucknall. A Listed hosiers house and workshop stands to the north, approximately 200m away.

The owner of the property, whilst being sympathetic, felt unable to allow access to the property because of the condition and vandalised nature of the building. No access was offered, either, to the north side of the rear workshop.

All written representations made on this case, held on file, have been taken into account.

26 Titchfield Street was erected in 1896 by the Calladine family for their Shetland shawl manufacturing company, formerly located on the neighbouring Albert Street. The building was designed, therefore, as a substantial house with an attached, three-storey hand frame knitting workshop to the rear. The buildings are shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1900.

In the nineteenth century the Calladines were a prominent family in Hucknall. William Calladine was amongst the first to develop the frame knitting of shawls in the town in the middle of the C19 bringing, alongside the developing local collieries, much needed employment to the expanding town. The family were prominent Baptists, on the board which erected the local Baptist chapel, and were active in the local council. Their company survived, at 26 Titchfield Street, opening up lucrative markets abroad, until the final demise of the industry in Hucknall in the 1980s.

The house and workshop were extended throughout the twentieth century: a single storey addition being made to the south side of the workshop and a long single-storey range being erected along the east side of the plot. Other additions were made to the north side of the workshop. In the late twentieth century, modern premises were erected on part of the former garden of the house. The house and workshop and the modern unit are currently empty and have been subject to vandalism. Almost all of the openings are variously boarded over or filled with breeze blocks.

SOURCES
Beardsmore J.H. History of Hucknall Torkard, 1909

A two storey, typical, late Victorian house with attached three storey workshop to the rear, in red brick with stone dressings. Almost all window openings are blocked in or boarded over. The pitched roofs are gabled and covered with modern concrete tiles. The house is heated from two stacks at each gable end, the southwest one of which has been reduced. The stone sills and lintels of the house are linked, forming strings around the building. The street front elevation has two polygonal bays at ground floor. Above, the two main rooms are lit by windows with a central 'mullion' in the form of a decorative column. Between these, a pair of windows has round-headed openings.
The main entrance to the house is at the south, gable end. The central doorway is concealed behind a formal porch of brick and stone with an off-set entrance and staggered stone quoins at the west corner. Simple windows are given a typical late nineteenth century decorative touch of coloured, small-pane lights over a stone transom. In the body of the house, to the left of the porch, a blocked window opening is a modern creation replacing a smaller window. Above, the central opening, in a stone surround, is original, perhaps a light for the stair, whereas small windows either side are twentieth century additions and would appear to indicate that the house was converted for factory use. A large opening in the gable is also of twentieth century date, indicating a conversion of the roof space. The gable has a decorative dentilled eaves cornice. The stacks are corbelled at the upper level.

Attached to the rear is a two storey linking range, in brick with a pitched roof and segmental arched openings. A surviving first floor sash window with margin lights, shows this range was in part domestic. This connects the house to a three storey workshop. The workshop also is of brick with a pitched and gabled roof. The main, south elevation is of four window bays: the openings at first level having flat stone lintels whilst those at the upper level having segmental arches. A modern fire-escape has been introduced into the east end bay. A single-story, mid twentieth century, projecting addition, conceals the original façade of the workshop, and part of the link range, at ground floor level. Adjoining the east end of the workshop is a mid twentieth century single storey, brick addition which runs along the east side of the former garden.

The late twentieth century premises erected at the south end of the site is a single storey, rectangular brick block in the form of a modern factory unit. The street front boundary walls survive but the garden has been covered with a hard surface to provide car parking.

ASSESSMENT
Britain has outstanding international importance as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. This was as much a cultural, social and economic revolution as a revolution in the techniques of making things: it radically altered the way in which people thought and lived. The global significance of these events in Britain has been recognised by the inscription of six industrial landscapes as World Heritage Sites. Industry has had a profound effect on the environment. Historic industrial sites are a vital element of our tourist industry and also feature strongly in most urban regeneration and rural land use programmes where they present opportunities for new use but also challenges for amenity and remediation. Because of the large numbers of surviving industrial buildings, the greatest care needs to taken to establish the precise nature of a site's special interest prior to designation.

In assessments for listing, a high level of reconstruction is sometimes the basis for a decision not to list. With industrial buildings, partial rebuilding and repair is often related to the industrial process and provides evidence for technological change that may in itself be significant enough to warrant protection: alteration can thus have a positive value.

Domestic workshop arrangements such as that at 26 Titchfield Street are increasingly being lost. In industries where mechanisation was introduced early, they are rare and interesting. For those industries where hand-powered production remained viable, the hosiery and the boot and shoe industries being notable examples, the house and workshop arrangement was still being developed, as here at Titchfield Street, in the late nineteenth century. Intact and good quality examples increasingly merit serious consideration for listing.

Potentially, therefore, this example may well have merited designation, and the significance of the Calladine family in the Hucknall industry added to the interest. However, as an example of domestic architecture the building has little interest. The house is a typical late Victorian house of which there are great many across England. Additions to the workshop have lessened its interest and adversely affected its character. The house has suffered the creation of new openings and is likely to have been converted to manufacturing use in the mid twentieth century. Although for commercial and industrial buildings alteration must be anticipated and accepted, to some extent, for a building of this date and quality they seriously compromise its interest.

Whilst being of local significance, from the evidence to hand it does not appear that the Hucknall industry has a national significance. The industry came late to the town and this example is a late example of a domestic scale workshop.

26 Titchfield Street has some group value with the house and workshop listed on Albert Street but the interest this adds is not such that it merits the listing of the building. There is no doubting the local interest of the building and its loss would be unfortunate in a local context. However, in a national context the building does not have special interest and does not therefore merit adding to the List.

The twentieth century factory building to the south of the house and workshop is of no historic or architectural interest. (1)

Historic England, 2021, National Record of Historic Environment (Digital archive). SNT5271.

<1> T. Calladine, 2008, English Heritage Listing File (Unpublished document). SNT6323.