Inside UK town with amazing factories still going strong — 900 years old

London may serve as the centre of British power today, but this hasn’t always been the case. During medieval times, Northampton hosted parliaments and great councils because of its association with the Crown. And thanks to its emergence as a major manufacturing power, the East Midlands town had become the shoemaking capital of the world by the 19th century. Fast forward to today and Northampton still wields power on the global stage. Why? Because the world still wants its shoes made there. And that makes footwear top of the shopping list for overseas visitors, says Julie Smart of luxury shoemaker Edward Green.

“If you say you’ve been to Northamptonshire [and you’re asked] ‘What have you bought?’, the first thing people are going to say is shoes,” she smiles. Julie is speaking to the Express in Edward Green’s loud and bustling factory, filled with around 50 skilled workers. The company follows the same meticulous processes that have made it a hallmark of quality since its establishment in 1890.

But not everything is produced in the town in the same way it once was. Northampton’s surrounding green and pleasant fields are historically the perfect grazing grounds for cattle that developed their superior hides from the local oak bark. Today, the UK “can’t provide enough leather for industry,” explains Julie, a production manager who oversees the clicking, preparation, and closing departments.

“I don’t think it’s to the standard of what it used to be. “The cattle are fed quickly, they expand quickly, and there’s a lot of growth marks. They are left out in the fields a lot longer so they get more tick marks and bites whereas abroad, they tend to be fed slowly and a lot are kept inside.”

For this reason Edward Green imports its hides from calves reared in Italy and France. Those hides are then hand finished to give the shoe a natural aged look. Julie says the company’s continued success is down to the quality of its Oxfords, Derbies, loafers and boots.

“These are quality shoes. Everything is completely made within this building. Nothing goes anywhere else. From the start to finish the standards are so high. You are going to get what you pay for.” Each pair of shoes typically starts at £1,000, with a custom-made pair costing £3,200.

It’s dear, yes, but the manufacturing process is complex and multi-layered, and requires immense skill. It starts with leather selection and a process called clicking where a shoemaker cuts out the main leather pieces that form the shoe’s uppers and internal linings from the animal hides.

Next comes pattern which involves placing stitch mark templates on top of the cut leather panels, followed by skiving – the slicing or cutting away of excess material.

An internal identification disc is marked with the shoe’s UK and US size, fit width, last number and unique serial number, which is then archived so the combination can be replicated or fixed.

“If they come back for repair – which they do even 10, 20 or 30 years later – as long as we can read this then we can pull out the original documents and the original last [foot-shaped model] and repair it,” says Julie.

Next, machinists assemble the uppers on post-bed sewing machines.

“Every row of stitching you see is done individually,” says Julie. “There are no twin needles. There are no guides. The edge is your guide. That is done purely by the eyes.”

Traditional boar bristles are used for some styles. They are spun together with thread which the firm says creates “a needle both thin and malleable enough to arc through calfskin with precision”.

A raised strip or ridge is applied along the underside of the shoe’s leather insole in a process called ribbing. The flat leather upper is later turned into a permanent 3D shape after being pulled tightly over a specialty pull-over machine.

“This machine fascinates me, even after all these years, because you’re going to see how it changes,” adds Julie. “Now you’re going to see how the shoe actually comes to look like a shoe.”

Next up the sole is attached to the ribbed insole and upper before sock liners and heel stamping are fitted. The final product is then hand polished. Each pair of shoes undergoes a rigorous final inspection before it is sent to a customer or put on general sale.

Northampton’s global customer base means shoes sizes can vary enormously. “Americans have got big feet,” chuckles Julie. “Africans have got large feet as well. But they’re more petitie in China and Japan.”

Average sizes in the UK have changed over the years too. “Many years ago the ladies’ average size used to be a five, and men’s were an eight. Now, it’s seven for ladies and nine or ten for men.”

People’s feet are also getting wider, which the College of Podiatry says is down to Britons becoming taller and bigger.

“Back in the 70s, they were always slim fit shoes, very Italian looking, and now they’re wider,” says Julie. “So as fashion changes, feet change. It goes round in a 10 year cycle.”

While Edward Green focuses on producing traditional shoes, other manufacturers in Northampton cater to younger generations. Crown Northampton sells trainers in addition to classic designs and its shelves are full of eye-catching, hand-welted luxury sneakers.

The company’s shoes are also made with different leather to Edward Green’s – bark-tanned material from Devon and shell cordovan, a rare leather taken from a fibrous membrane called the “shell” found on a horse’s rump, which is made from horsehide from Shinki Hikaku in Japan. Each pair typically costs between £200 and £1,000.

“We have marbled cordovan [a multi-tone variant], and there are shells from a horse in which there’s probably 10 shells big enough to make that shoe every year,” says Chris Woodford, the company’s founder and managing director. “That’s how rare we can go.”

“There’s really technical things, like leathers where they’re tanned,” he adds. “We use Bakers tannery in Devon. They take a year to tan a skin of English calf leather, which means it’s three times the price.”

The businessman learned shoe design and pattern cutting when he was 16 years old, and thinks that Northampton is unique due to its expanse of manufacturing knowledge.

“The reason it matters now, and this is something that’s missed by companies that import stuff, is that when I design something, it’ll go to the next part in the procedure to a machinist who’s a third generation shoemaker and will say, ‘My grandad used to do this. Should we try that’?

“That dictates how the shoe ends up looking. That’s why the remaining seven or eight factories that make from start to finish in Northampton have their own style,” he adds. “There’s something about coming here and seeing someone making something and chatting to the person that actually makes it – that human connection – and it’s really creating something at the moment.”

Chris remains in close contact with his customers as they wait on average between nine and 12 weeks for their shoes to be made.

“The reason it matters now, and this is something that’s missed by companies that import stuff, is that when I design something, it’ll go to the next part in the procedure to a machinist who’s a third generation shoemaker and will say, ‘My grandad used to do this. Should we try that’?

“That dictates how the shoe ends up looking. That’s why the remaining seven or eight factories that make from start to finish in Northampton have their own style,” he adds. “There’s something about coming here and seeing someone making something and chatting to the person that actually makes it – that human connection – and it’s really creating something at the moment.”

Chris remains in close contact with his customers as they wait on average between nine and 12 weeks for their shoes to be made.

“It’s about servicing people and having a relationship with someone, rather than just making a shoe,” he says.

Chris is following in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, Ernest Woodford, who set up E. Woodford & Sons in 1908. He manages around 25 employees and plans to start an “academy” that trains shoe manufacturers to keep the industry alive.

He believes that the town needs to modernise to survive in a tricky economic environment. He wants to see manufacturers being able to sell their stuff in the high street.

“You can’t buy shoes made by us in shops that we have in town, which is mad, isn’t it?” he exclaims. “If the town centre was like Bicester [known for its past season, discounted luxury goods] for shoes, and we had stores and great business rates, all the factories could have a store in town.

“We’ve always said to local government, ‘We would never know this was a shoe town. You drive in, and there’s nothing’.”

He also intends to launch a festival called Shoe Town celebrating Northampton’s cobblers next May.

“I travel the world to show this stuff,” says Chris. “I’m thinking, why aren’t we doing this in Northampton?”

He hopes the event will be interactive, so visitors can watch local artisans at work and even try things like hand-welting themselves. It’s another way for town’s trademark industry to thrive and put excellence and craftsmanship first… most definitely a step in the right direction.