Arkwright House

The house was built in 1728. It was the home of Revd Ellis Henry, who was the headmaster of the Free Grammar School in Stoneygate, and in 1768 Richard Arkwright was a lodger in the house. Arkwright was obsessed with the idea of creating a machine to spin yarn mechanically. During the time he was living in the house he worked with Thomas Highs and John Kay to develop a machine to do this. Their work was carried out in secrecy, the landlord thinking that they were working on a machine to measure the longitude. However it resulted in a machine known as the water frame, and this was patented in 1769. The historian David Hunt argues that this makes Arkwright House one of the birthplaces of the…

Arkwright House is built in brick, and has a partly stuccoed façade and a slate roof. It is in early Georgian style, and has an L-shaped plan consisting of a front range, a rear wing, and the 19th-century extension to the right. The house is in three storeys with an attic and cellar, and has a symmetrical five-bay front, plus a two-bay extension. The doorway has a wooden architrave with a pediment and a fanlight. The extension contains a shop window in the ground floor; the other windows are sashes.