History of the house

History of the Master Hosier's House and Workshops (rear)

At the rear is a cobbled yard with a water pump. A two storey workshop extension has been added to the rear of the house. The brick floor of an earlier frame shop can be seen in the garden; not unusual for this part of Leicestershire, with its long tradition of worsted knitting.

In the second half of the eighteenth century a single storey workshop, since demolished, was built in the garden, in which were knitting frames. The nineteenth century addition was the two storey extension at the rear, filling in the original L-shaped plan of the building. The extension was used as a two storey workshop for grafting and mending. The typical long windows have been preserved intact.

The last stage of the development seems to have been the building of the two storey workshop in the garden (shown above), in 1890. This is very late for such a home-based industry, but it is evident that a living could still be made by hand-frame knitting if one specialised in gloves and fancy sock tops.

See the front of the museum

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