City · United Kingdom
Northampton
Northampton is the centre of English shoemaking, where Edward Green, Crockett & Jones, Church's and others make shoes in factories running for a century or more.
Northampton is the centre of English shoemaking. Edward Green, Crockett & Jones, Church's, Tricker's, Alfred Sargent and others make Goodyear-welted shoes within a few miles of one another, in factories that have been running for a century or more.
Why a Midlands town
Cattle, oak bark for tanning, and a position on the road network. Northampton was supplying army boots by the seventeenth century and had industrialised shoemaking by the nineteenth, and the trade concentrated to the point where the town's football club is still nicknamed the Cobblers.
What survives is a genuine cluster: not one factory but a dozen, plus last makers, leather merchants and the specialist suppliers a shoe factory needs. That is the same clustering logic as Biella or Savile Row, and it is why the trade has been so hard to relocate.
What Northampton makes
Overwhelmingly Goodyear-welted shoes: a construction in which the upper and a canvas rib on the insole are stitched to a welt, and the sole is then stitched to the welt. It is machine-executed, durable, and, the point, resoleable several times over, which is what makes an expensive English shoe a reasonable purchase rather than an extravagant one.
The range within the town is wide. Edward Green sits at the top of the ready-to-wear market; Crockett & Jones covers a broad range including its own upper tier; Tricker's is known for country boots; and several factories make for other brands under contract without saying so.
Visiting
Several factories operate factory shops selling seconds and discontinued lines, and some run tours. The Northampton Museum and Art Gallery holds what is generally described as the largest collection of shoes in the world, which is a more interesting afternoon than it sounds.
Images
Shoemakers in Northampton
All shoemakers →
01
Edward Green
Edward Green is a Northampton shoemaker, around since 1890, making top-tier off-the-shelf shoes with far more hand shaping and finishing than most factory shoes.
02
Crockett & Jones
Crockett & Jones is a family-owned Northampton shoemaker whose wide range runs from standard well-made shoes to a much more finely finished premium line.
03
Church's
Church's is the best-known English shoe brand, owned by Prada since 1999, and quality now varies across its range, so the name alone guarantees less.
04
Tricker's
Tricker's is the oldest surviving shoemaker in Northampton, best known for heavy country boots like the Stow brogue boot with its thick, chunky sole.
Practical notes
Elsewhere in United Kingdom
Sources
- Shoe collection , Northampton Museum and Art Gallery.
Where a figure is disputed or a house has not published it, the page says so rather than choosing a number.
Picture credits 10
- 20260712 200312 C.T. Hawkins Limited, Northampton: Photograph · Bearas · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Northampton Market Square Lights 4: Photograph · Mickapedia · Wikimedia Commons · CC0
- Burlington Complex, Northampton: Photograph · Bearas · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0
- Northampton 151 Former G T Hawkins Factory (50575874348): Photograph · Peter O'Connor aka anemoneprojectors · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
- All Saints Church, Northampton: Photograph · G-Man (en.wikipedia) · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- Northampton Castle: Photograph · Unknown author · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- An illustration of a welted shoe of the kind the house makes. Not a photograph of the house's own work.: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
- Crockett & Jones men's dress shoes, type Dalton, black calf leather 02: Photograph · OlafJanssen · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Church's Works in St James Northampton: Photograph · Cj1340 · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Trickers, Jermyn Street, London: Photograph · Philafrenzy · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0