Richard Harris and Sons Factory – Grade II Listing

Hosiery warehouse, now industrial units. c.1845, probably by William Flint of Leicester [who also designed the Corn Exchange] and for the noted hosiery manufacturer, Richard Harris [former Mayor of Leicester].

Extended in the same style 1851 by Flint & Wickes, 1856 by Flint & Shenton, 1866 and 1867, by Shenton & Baker. All these firms were successors to William Flint’s practice. Used as a hosiery warehouse by Pool, Lorrimer & Tabberer, c.1890-c.1970. Converted 1974.

Red brick, with ashlar dressings and hipped welsh slate roofs with skylights and various coped stacks. Italianate style. Plinth, rusticated quoins, string courses, moulded eaves cornice with modillions. 3 storeys plus basement. Approximately square plan, 15 x 13 windows. Windows are mainly C19 plain sashes with segmental white brick heads.

Entrance front to King Street, 9 windows, has to right the main doorway, remodelled 1867. Round arched doorway with rusticated surround and keystone, moulded 6-panel margin stile door and plain fanlight.

Above, a window with moulded surround, volutes, keystone and voussoir head. Marlborough Street front, 15 windows, has regular fenestration. Duke Street front, 13 windows, has regular fenestration, mainly C19 glazing bar sashes, some to the ground floor partly reglazed. The fifth window is replaced by a C20 loading door. In the ninth bay, a pair of cart doors, with a segmental headed rusticated surround. The windows above this bay are tripartite. In the twelfth bay, a C20 doorway, with a half-window to left, and a blank to right.

INTERIOR: Round cast iron columns carrying wooden floors. Listing NGR: SK5881604012

• Details taken from the Historic England list entry page for the Cotton Mill.