Huston's Shirt Factory

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A three-storey L-shaped building latterly used as a shirt factory but now vacant. Pitched roofs with replacement cement-fibre and profiled metal sheeting. Plastic rainwater goods. Walls are random rubble with brick to upper floors, and all with roughcast cement render to street elevations.
The principal façade faces E to street and is six openings wide. Pedestrian door, sliding door (with wicket gate) and wide double-leaf door to GF, all of t&g timber. Sign over sliding door reads ‘R.H. Huston & Son Ltd Shirt Manufacturers”. Also window towards left. FF has five windows and double-leaf loading door. FF has five windows and double-leaf loading door at right under projecting gabled eaves canopy. All windows are replacements with timber frames and 1x1, 1x2 and 2x1 panes. Some of their original sandstone cills have been replaced in concrete. A two-storey house, now a shell, projects forward at right-hand end.
S gable is abutted towards GF right by wall of neighbouring property (no access behind). Two windows to each upper floor; all are 1x2 replacements, except for FF left which is 6/6 timber sliding sash.
Rear (W) elevation is abutted by mid-20th century two-storey flat-roofed, rendered concrete brick extension. Exposed gable at left end of main building has modern window and door inserts to SF. No access to remainder of elevation.
N elevation is random rubble basalt to GF, with modern doorway at right-hand end. Upper floors are of brick and devoid of openings.

Setting
This factory is located in an urban environment, along the W side of the now-pedestrianised Society Street

Roof: Pitched cement-fibre and profiled metal
Rainwater goods: Plastic
Walls: Stone and brick
Windows: 1x1, 1x2 and 2x1 timber casements

Historical information

This building is shown on the 1882 Coleraine large-scale town map but it is uncertain whether it is the same one which is depicted on the 1830 and 1850 six-inch maps. The 19th century valuation books regarded it as two outbuildings belonging to adjacent houses on New Row, the next street along to the west. The valuation revision books record them simply as ‘outbuildings’ belonging to numbers 18 and 20 New Row.
The 1875 valuation book entry for no.18 notes “William Galbraith is manager for Thomas Rogers of London”. Messrs Rogers were shirt manufacturers, and the 1879 entry for the same property notes “new house and manufactory in Society Street”. The ‘new’ house is probably the two-storey building abutting the NE end of the building under review. Whether the factory was new as well is uncertain.
There is also some uncertainly as to when shirt making actually began. The 1863 street directory records a William G Self as owing a shirt factory in New Row in 1863. Henry Rogers is likewise recorded in 1865 and again in 1877. As the latter concurs with the valuation, if only in surname and function, it is probable that Messrs Rogers were operating from the same premises in 1865, and Self may have also have being doing so two years previously. In 1894, Messrs Rogers relocated to a purpose-built shirt factory in Beresford Road (HB03/17/006) and is no longer recorded in New Row.
The premises were then used for other purposes but became a shirt factory once again in 1944
When Mr R.H. Huston (father of the present owner) established a shirt making business in the buildings which he rented from a local builder. He eventually purchased the premises outright and added a large extension to the rear c.1955. This extension entailed the demolition of the south return of the 19th century block.
At its peak in the late 1950s, Huston’s factory employed c.70 people. Sewing machines were the predominant type of machinery, all electrically driven. Most of the work was carried out on behalf of others (known as the ‘cut, make and trim’ system of production), but in later years Mr Huston’s son also manufactured shirts on his own account.
Overseas competition, declining orders and factory legislation forced the premises’ closure in 2008.

References – Primary Sources:
1. PRONI OS/6/5/7/1. First edition OS six-inch map, Co Londonderry sheet 7 (1830).
2. PRONI OS/6/5/7/2. Second edition OS six-inch map, Co Londonderry sheet 7 (1850).
3. Street Directory for 1863.
4. Street Directory for 1865.
5. VAL/12/B/30/9D. Valuation revision book, p.270 (1874-84).
6. Street Directory for 1877.
7. PRONI OS/8/6/3B. Coleraine town map, 1:500 scale (1882).
8. PRONI VAL/12/E/156/1/9. Valuation revision map, 1:500 scale (1882-1907).
9. VAL/12/B/30/9F. Valuation revision book, p.266 (1885-92).
10. Street Directory for 1890.
11. VAL/12/B/30/9J. Valuation revision book, p.263 (1893-99).
12. Street Directory for 1895.
13. VAL/12/B/30/9L. Valuation revision book, p.309 (1900-12).
14. PRONI OS/8/6/2/4. Coleraine town map 1:500 scale (1904).
15. PRONI OS/10/5/7/7/2. OS 25-inch map, Co Londonderry sheet 7-07 (1922).
16. VAL/12/B/30/9P. Valuation revision book, p.247 (1913-31).
17. PRONI OS/10/5/7/7/3. OS 25-inch map, Co Londonderry sheet 7-07 (1949).
18. PRONI OS/11/13/13/1. First edition IG 25-inch map, sheet 13-13 (1967-68).
19. Information from owner (2013).

References – Secondary Sources:
1. Coleraine Times, 4 Aug 2008.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A two-storey 19th century building used for shirt making in the later 1800s, and again in the later 1900s. The refurbishment of the building in the 1900s and demolition of a return to make way for a 1950s extension at the rear have resulted in a considerable loss of architectural character. Although of local historical interest in having been the last operational shirt factory in Coleraine, it is not sufficiently special to warrant listing.