Gardner Street

The red brick warehouses lining Gardner Street wear their Victorian industrial identity on their facades. These buildings arrived in the eighteen seventies to support the booming trade of the North Laine district, specifically for the wholesale shoe and drapery businesses that fueled the local economy. Arthur Vanson, a prominent local merchant, operated his large warehouse here, where goods arrived by rail to be distributed across the town. The heavy doors and wide loading bays still hint at the steady stream of wagons that once crowded these cobbles.