THE BOOT FACTORY

CHRISTIAN GRANT PROPERTIES

Based in St. George, Bristol this circa 1880s building was originally the Clouds Hill Boot Factory, although since then it has been home to a number of other business before being left vacant. Rather than demolish for new build we decided to renovate the building into 22 well appointed apartments, with an additional 4 new build apartments in the courtyard. Being amongst terraced houses it was critical that we supported the local residents by ensuring deliveries were timed at sociable hours and not to overlap in order that congestion was kept to an absolute minimum. A local meeting was held in order that we could receive feedback from the local residents, and post development an opening party was held and local residents were invited to meet their new neighbours.


We aimed to sympathetically renovate the existing building, keeping as many original features as possible and ensuring all additional elements stayed true to the history of the building. Creating a community for the residents was key to every decision made with the architects and build team. Decisions were made based on the overall positive impact on the residents, local community and building history. Examples of this are exposing the original brickwork, cleaning and repairing where necessary rather than rendering over, applying exterior lighting to the front of the building, retaining and displaying historical items salvaged from the building, and investing in Victorian themed lampposts for the courtyard area as well as flickering flame effect lighting outside of individual apartments.