Reedham House and Neighbours - King Street West



This block, on the corner of St. Mary's Parsonage and King Street West, is made up of three buildings, two of which date back to at least the mid 1800s.  The rather classical looking building, with the columns and pediment, on the corner of King Street West and Smithy Lane, is Reedham House.  Beside it, with a branch of Entwistle's at street level, is a three storey building that is probably the most modern structure in the block.  Behind both of these, and rising above them, is a 19th Century factory building occupied in part by Kuits Solicitors.  Judging by the sign on the windows Kuits also occupy the floor about Entwistle's.





Below is my version of a plan of the site. 



Kuits occupy a building across Garden Lane on St. Mary's Parsonage which is connected to the old factory building by a glass bridge.




You can see the entrance to the old factory building on Smithy Lane (below).




If you look down Dunlop Street (see below) you can see the back of the old factory and the interesting windows on the stairwell.



As you can see from my version of a map from the 1880s (below), Reedham House was a "Machinery & Leather Warehouse".  The old factory had two occupants, P. Haworth's Leather Factory and Binyons, Robinson & Co's tea and coffee warehouse.  The site of today's "Entwistle" building was occupied by an odd combination of Brass Works and Undertaker.  The near neighbour was the Albert Street Police Sation and between the two a narrow building housing a veterinary surgeon and shoeing forge.

The configuration and naming of streets has changed since the 1880s.  Albert Street is gone and Alberton House now sits in the vicinity of the police station buildings and Albert Street.  Albert Street became St. Mary's Parsonage and it now runs along  the former Garden Lane and through what was the vets and the back wall of the police station yard.  Greek Street is now Dunlop Street and Garden Lane now runs along the back of the old factory building between the Calico Warehouse and Haworth's Leather Factory.



The arrow on the aerial photograph below points to Reedham House on the corner of Smithy Lane.



I suspect that the low brick wall behind the parked motorbikes, in the image below, is the wall that separated Haworth's Factory from the Veterinary Surgeon's building.  The green arrow on the image above points to that location.



Below you can see the site in the middle of the 1800s.  It shows that the old factory started out as a coach manufactury and it is possible that Reedham House was part of it.  The map also shows that Albert Street Police Station was built on, or occupied, the buildings of the former Gas Works, the first to supply gas to the city centre.




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