A look into one of the most advanced buildings of its period. Designed to dazzle and built by a progressive employer, the Adam’s Building on Stony Street houses an incredibly rich history.
If you’ve walked along Stoney Street in the Lace Market, from The Angel pub up towards Broadway, you can’t help but notice an impressive building on the right side of the road: the Adams and Page Building. Today it’s a Grade II listed building and home to Nottingham College, but have you ever wondered who built it, why it's so grand or what it was used for?
The ‘Adams’ Building,’ as it's now known, was one of the first purpose-built lace warehouses and showrooms in Nottingham, designed by architect T C Hine who was also responsible for many other Lace Market buildings. Commissioned by Thomas Adams, a partner in Adams and Page Lace Manufacturing Company, work on the Adams and Page building began in 1854, and continued in phases over the next 20 years.
Thomas was born in Worksop in 1807. He began working as a lace merchant at 23 in a small warehouse on Stoney Street before his fortunes took off and he was able to expand, go into partnership and commission purpose-built premises. Up until then warehouses had normally occupied converted houses, but as the demand for lace grew, these no longer provided enough space for the scale of manufacturing processes now needed.
Internationally renowned Nottingham lace was manufactured in Adams and Page factories elsewhere in the city, and then brought to their Stoney Street site to be finished, stored and sold. Buyers would arrive from London on a Saturday morning, travelling up and down the street visiting various lace showrooms, and placing orders.
Keeping up with the neighbours meant designing an eye-catching building to house a showroom, which was essential to enticing these buyers in. Competition to attract interest was fierce, reflected in the grandiosity of the Adams’ building’s dramatic Anglo-Italian style frontage: two wings embracing the central entrance in a huge ‘E’ shape. The opulence of the architecture attracted criticism from contemporary commentators, believing it to be too good for a ‘mere factory’.
This shape was carefully chosen to allow maximum light and provide large manufacturing areas over its five storeys. With land in the area at a premium, this packed as much as possible into the available space. The whole building was designed specifically for processing lace, requiring large and spacious areas to accommodate long lengths of lace being laid out for workers to check the quality, catch up any faults and carry out finishing - sewing over raw edges to stop the material from unravelling. Good lighting was essential, hence the number of windows included on every floor. The grand open-plan sales and display room was almost 13 feet high, lit by two aureole windows above the main entrance to give enough light for buyers to see fine lace details.
Being one of the first purpose-built lace warehouses of its time, it made use of many cutting-edge technologies of the day. The long, open finishing areas were only possible because iron columns were used to support the floor above. Floors were suspended by wrought iron rod ties and used cast iron ‘I’ beams as joists. This reduced their weight but not their strength, offering the necessary strength to support different functions on each floor and also providing some fireproofing. Riveted iron doors were fitted to act as firebreaks should the worst happen. Fire was a constant worry within an area of large warehouses containing dry goods and there was great public concern about how any fire here might spread through the town.
If the front was designed to entice buyers, where was the mundane work of moving lace in and out of the building carried out? With the growing number of lace businesses in the area, particularly along Stoney Street, traffic congestion was an increasing problem. Horses and carts delivering lace battled up and down, buyers’ carriages added to the mayhem as well as many other vehicles. To address this, the Adams’ building had its stockyard entrance at the back of the building on St Mary’s Gate.
Instead of carts having to stop to unload goods in the street, causing more traffic problems, the building design enabled them to drive straight into the centre of the building to unload or load their produce. This is where the 600 predominantly female workers would have entered and left the building - well away from the grand sales area and prospective customers at the front. Their entrance may have been less striking, but it was in no way utilitarian, with detailed carving and design work.
Thomas Adams was a devout Quaker and his Christian beliefs greatly influenced the facilities provided for his workers. They had access to a library, separate male and female washrooms, tea rooms and a dining room. There was a classroom provided for child employees whose days were split between learning and working, which also hosted ‘improvement classes’ for the adults. A medical aid society was run to help pay for health treatments and provision for a ‘penny bank’ to encourage workers to save if they could. In addition, a chapel was included in the north wing of the building facing Stoney Street, each day beginning with a morning service for the workers.
A novel feature was introduced to provide workers with a pleasant working environment, introducing a system used in homes for heating and ventilation, but new to a factory setting. Warm air was circulated from the basement around the building via plaster ducts within the walls. This emerged from high-level grills with fireplaces in larger rooms to augment the heating. On top of providing all these facilities, Thomas fixed the hours for the workers to 9 hours a day - in striking contrast to other lace factory owners of the time where 14 or 15 hours were typical. A factory inspector commented on how healthy Adams and Page's workers looked compared to the average factory worker.
Sadly by the 1920s fashions were changing and the demand for lace fell rapidly. The lace boom was over and the Adams’ building finally closed its doors in the 1950s. By the 1980s the building, along with most of the Lace Market, had fallen into a sad state of disrepair. However, in 1996 the building was lovingly restored by the Lace Market Heritage Trust and Nottingham College took it over as part of its campus in 1999.
The Adams’ Building continues to bask as one of the most beautiful buildings on Stoney Street - take a closer look next time you walk past.
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