Joiners in Hucknall

A pit town for 125 years, and the joinery that came out of it

Hucknall dug coal from 1861 until 1986. The Hucknall Colliery Company was formed in 1861, No. 1 shaft worked from 1861 to 1943, and No. 2 kept going until 1986. The Leen Valley was mined hard and the town collected three railway lines along the way. The 2011 census counted 32,107 people in 7.913 square kilometres, which is a lot of house per acre, and it shows in the grain of the streets around Butler's Hill and Westville.

That history sets out the job before you start. A long Victorian and Edwardian terrace belt, then an interwar layer, then a heavy stretch of late-twentieth-century growth on the Nottingham side. The terraces of the 1860s to 1900s will usually be carrying horned sashes. Between the wars the pattern shifts towards timber casements, bay windows and leaded upper lights. The estates put up since the 1970s are ordinary modern casement work. That is inference from era, not something written down, so look at your own frontage before assuming.

Where the record is exact is in the listed buildings, and Hucknall has fifteen of them, one Grade II* and fourteen Grade II. Forge Mill of 1787, a former cotton spinning mill in stone, is described in its list entry as having "sash and casement windows, loading doors, hatches, and a wheel opening". Hucknall Library of 1887 to 1888, red brick with a tower porch and ornamental gables, has "casement windows with keystones". The Houses of Rest for Miners, built in 1925 by Sir Reginald Blomfield, have sash windows under an octagonal cupola with a copper dome. The 1944 Wing Test Hangar that Rolls-Royce built for engine testing has "small-pane windows with concrete lintels".

Those are the local reference points, and they are what your eye has been trained on whether you realise it or not.

Conservation area and consent: what we know, and what we will not guess at

The town centre conservation area is one of six in Ashfield District. The council publishes nine Article 4 directions across the whole district, and the only Hucknall entry on that list is "Land off Hucknall Bypass, Hucknall".

On the face of it that reads as a direction over a parcel of land rather than a householder direction sitting over the town centre streets. But we have not read its schedule, so we are not going to tell you that nothing affects your windows. That is exactly the sentence that gets a homeowner an enforcement notice.

What we will say is this. If your house sits in the town centre conservation area, or it is listed, or it is a flat rather than a house, or it is anywhere near the bypass land, the position needs confirming for your specific address. Ask Ashfield District Council for the conservation officer and ask for the answer in writing. Do it before you place an order, not after the frames are made. Rules genuinely do vary from one street to the next.

One practical note: the town centre was pedestrianised in 2017, with an inner relief road running from Annesley Road through to Station Road, so access for delivery and fitting near the Market Place needs a bit of planning.

Nine or ten miles on the A611

Our benches are at 43 Bleak Hill Way, Mansfield NG18 5EZ. Hucknall lies roughly nine to ten miles south of there, about twenty to twenty-five minutes on the A611, which is the Mansfield to Kirkby to Hucknall to Nottingham road. The mileage is approximate.

Everything is made on our benches

The firm was started in 2004 by Terence "Tez" Cudworth, who is City & Guilds qualified. Every window, door and unit is made in the Mansfield workshop. We do not buy in someone else's product and put our badge on it, which is why we can copy an existing section, horn or glazing bar accurately.

We are a licensed Accoya manufacturer, and Accoya carries a fifty-year above-ground warranty. Odd shapes, non-standard sizes and one-off replacements are ordinary work here.

Tina handles the customer side from first call onwards, and we send progress photographs over WhatsApp while the job is on the bench.

The work splits like this:

• bespoke timber windows, box sash and casement
• handmade timber doors, front, internal and French
• bespoke joinery: kitchens, bars, fitted wardrobes, staircases and balustrades
• commercial joinery

Byron is buried in St Mary Magdalene's, and so is his daughter Ada Lovelace, which makes this an unusual churchyard for an old coal town. The buildings around it deserve timber that was made for them. Send us a photograph and a measurement and we will tell you what it needs. Call 01623 530838.