Debbie Bryan has invited me to run a short walk exploring Nottingham’s Lace Market as part of her programme of Mother’s Day events on Sunday 31st March 2019.
Out and about in the Lace Market looking for Beauty in the Details.
This walk will be a slightly expanded version of the Beauty in the Details walks I offered last year, looking at the architecture and history of this unique part of the city. Tickets come with the choice of cream tea or full afternoon tea. So bring your mum or come along and treat yourself!
Treat your mum to afternoon tea at Debbie Bryan.
You can book over on Debbie Bryan’s website and tickets are £15 (cream tea) and £30 (full afternoon tea). Menus are available with traditional, vegetarian or vegan options and Debbie’s cafe caters for gluten-free options if booked in advance. Meet at Debbie Bryan on St Mary’s Gate for a 1pm start, for a walk and talk of approximately one hour (under 1km on flat paved streets) then return to Debbie Bryan for tea.
Thanks to everyone who came along to the Hine Hike yesterday (17 February) It helped me to test the route and timed the walk. I hope to set more dates for this walk as well as more Watson Fothergill Walks through the Spring and Summer 2019 – watch this space or sign up for the WFW newsletter for updates.
I am trying out a new walk exploring the architecture of Thomas Chambers Hine, the other big name behind some of the most impressive Victorian buildings in Nottingham. This first walk will be a “work in progress” and I’ll be looking for your feedback at the end of the route.
Come and help me test out my new walk, The Hine Hike! Tickets here
Tickets are £10 but if you’re quick you can get a discount on tickets by using the code found in the mailing list email.
The morning walk on 28th April 2019 is very nearly sold out so I have added an afternoon session startng at 1pm. Tickets are available on Eventbrite price £12 each, tickets include hot drinks and cake at Debbie Bryan after the walk.
In my last few blogs I’ve been looking at the life and work of Lawrence George Summers who was Watson Fothergill’s assistant and an architect in his own right, albeit a somewhat less flamboyant one.
The last installment left off in New Basford, from where I walked back to Sherwood Rise. I passed Fothergill’s Norris Homes and further down Berridge Road at the corner with Cedar Road I found a large three storey block which originally comprised Five Dwellng Houses and a Shop (LGS16). Summers didn’t sign the drawings but there is evidence that he worked on them in 1902. The client was Mr George Hayes.
The corner of Berridge Road and Cedar Road, with traces of the 1902 building. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.The shop front still visible on the corner of Cedar Road, but building heavily altered. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.
Over on the other side of Mansfield Road, into Mapperley Park can be found what is likely to be the latest building to be signed off by LG Summers. The house built for Mrs Eleanor Ellenberger (Watson Fothergill’s 4th daughter) on Thorncliffe Road (LGS29).
The house on Thorncliffe Road that LG Summers built for Fothergill’s daughter Eleanor Ellenberger. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.
The date stones are marked 1930. Given that plans were submitted in 1929 after Fothergill’s death in 1928, it can perhaps be assumed that the house was built with his inheritance.
The date stones 19 & 30 at Thorncliffe Road. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.
Of all the houses built by Summers that I’ve found so far, this last one seems to show the least of Fothergill’s influence, but by the 1920s fashions in architecture had moved on considerable from the Gothic and Vernacular styles that were interpretted in the work coming out of the George Street Office in the late 19th century.
Gables and varied roof lines still feature in Summers’ late work. Photo: Lucy Brouwer. Unusual corner windows make a handsome feature on Mrs Ellenberger’s house. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.
In 1894 Eleanor Fothergill Watson Fothergill (as her maiden name became when her father had his moment at the deed poll) married the German-born (but naturalised British) violin teacher Georg Hieronymus Ellenberger (1862-1918). They lived in Nottingham at Lindum house (at the corner of Burns Street near All Saints Church from at least 1899) and towards then end of his life they lived in Ecceleshall, Sheffield.
Georg(e) Ellenberger was a pupil of the violinist Joseph Joachim (a collaborator of Joannes Brahms) and was himself violin teacher to the young Hucknall-born Eric Coates around 1898. Coates would take the train from Hucknall to Nottingham for his lessons twice a week. Coates became a composer, and is probably best known for the Dam Busters March.
After Georg(e)’s death, Eleanor appears to have returned to Nottingham. She died in 1946. It was her son, Brigadier George Fothergill Ellenberger who transcribed some of Fothergill’s family history notes (this typed document is held at the local studies library in Angel Row.)
Tickets are now available for two new dates for the Debbie Bryan Edition of the Watson Fothergill Walk. The new dates are both Sunday mornings, with a 10am start on 28th April 2019 and 26th May 2019. Tickets are £12 each and include tea or coffee and cake at Debbie Bryan in the Lace Market at the conclusion of the walk.
In the last blog I found out some more about LG Summers’ family background. This time I’m going to take a look at some of his buildings.
Starting from Sherwood, I went for a wander to find some of the buildings designed by Lawrence George Summers which are still standing in Nottingham. Around the corner from the larger blocks of Fothergill houses on Mansfield Road is a small house on Bingham Road which has characteristics easily mistaken for Fothergill, a decorative turret and a vernacular gable with brick nogging in distinctive red bricks with black timber.
Bingham Road, Built 1921. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.
But this little dwelling at 16 Bingham Road (LGS25) is the work of Summers. Applying for planning in August 1921, the builder was W Hayes of Mapperley and the client was Mr Thomas M Basnett. It seems that this was on the land that was owned by Fothergill, part of the larger parcel where the Villas of 1906 were built.
Turret and gable at Bingham Road showing some familiar motifs. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.
A further foray into Carrington and eventually I find the next house on my list, on Herbert Road (LGS12). Little seems to be known about this, other than plans were approved in 1897 and the client was Mr J B Hughes.
Some interesting features in the roof line, the brick work and the windows make this house slightly more than initially meets the eye. Herbert Road, 1897. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.The house on Herbert Road is one of several that seem to have been built around the same time, but each has its own idiocyncracies. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.From the back the interesting roof layout is more apparent but the windows have been replaced. The lower roof in front belongs to next door. Herbert Road. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.
The next house on the trail was on Central Avenue (LGS22), not far away. This was built for Gilbert L Summers, LG’s nephew, in 1914. Summers marked his name on the application with “ARIBA”. After Fothergill retired LG signs off with his qualification. In the 1911 census Gilbert was living at 44 Central Avenue with his widowed father Frederick (LG’s brother), his sister Evelyn and his niece (LG’s sister Lola’s daughter) Clara Richardson lived-in as their housekeeper. (It was common practice that an unmarried female member of the extended family would live-in to provide domestic help to unmarried or widowed male relatives.)
Not many original features seem to survive in the house on Central Avenue. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.
Gilbert Lawrence Summers is listed in the 1911 census as a Sewing Machine Mechanic. Perhaps he was working in the family lace firm in New Basford. By 1939, when a register was taken, Gilbert appears to be living in Wiverton Road (around the corner from other Summers buildings in Berridge Road) with his wife Lily.
Many of Lawrence Summers’s buildings (at least the ones he signs off himself) were for members of his extended family in the New Basford area.
Over on Duke Street, a little further up the street from the site of the house where LG was born, are “Two Cottages” (LGS15). Built in 1899, these three storey houses stand out in a street that is now mostly light industrial buildings and modern additions.
The two cottages built by LG Summers on Duke Street. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.
The cottages on Duke Street on Picture Nottingham. It is wrongly attributed to Watson Fothergill (with their standard caption for his work).
At the time, Summers was signing himself as “Architect of Corporation Oaks”. In 1881 various members of the Summers family were living on Duke Street. The numbering of the houses has changed and perhaps the old family home was demolished. His sister Lola, Mrs Richardson, and her family were living at 2 Duke Street, and his father George Summers with second wife Louisa, plus Lawrence’s younger brothers Frederick and Alexander were next door at number 4. In the 1891 census LG is living with his brother Frederick and his family at number 4, while their father, George, is at number 2 with Louisa and their 9 year old son William. Did they subsequently move up Duke Street to the new cottages that LG designed with himself as the client? In 1910, Summers applied to extend the Duke Street houses into shops (LGS21), again he himself was the client, which suggested that members of the Summers family were indeed living in the cottages. As far as I can tell these are now the adjacent property which has been turned back into dwellings. The shape of the shop fronts remain, albeit much altered.
The extension, originally shops, on the corner of Duke Street and Gawthorne Street. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.
Lawrence’s youngest brother Alexander was still living in New Basford in 1901 and is listed on the census as a Pork Butcher and Shopkeeper, so perhaps the shop was his?
Following the road, past what are now mostly motor garages in older industrial buildings, some dated 1840s and some 1870s, an indication that this area was already industrial at the time the Summers family lived here when Lawrence was a child. His father’s lace business was almost certainly here.
Down at the bottom on Northgate, it is just possible to recognise the small two storey factory (LGS3), that Summers designed for James Allen in 1882.
Northgate factory premises. A fairly basic version of the lace top shop perhaps? Photo: Lucy Brouwer.
At this time Summers is signing himself as “Architect, 11 South Parade Nottingham” (South Parade makes up the side of the Market Square that runs up the opposite side to Long Row). Summers was admitted to RIBA in 1881 but isn’t using letters after his name at this point. It is assumed he was in the Clinton Street office with Fothergill from around 1879, having also been articled as a pupil to Issac Charles Gilbert from 1869. (His studies at the Mechanics Institute and Nottingham School of Art were running concurrently).
Look out for the next installment of my blog as I carry on into Mapperley Park on the trial of LG Summers…
I hope to organise a walk featuring some of Fothergill and Summers buildings in and around Sherwood, Sherwood Rise and Mapperley Park later this year – sign up to my mailing list for the latest news or “like” the Facebook page.
Some detective work looking for the rather elusive “architect’s assistant”.
I’ve been using some online archives to see if there is anything else out there about Lawrence G. Summers and after some digging I think I’ve come up with a few clues.
Starting with Ancestry.com (which is available to use for free in Nottinghamshire Libraries and is an invaluable starting point if you enjoy a bit of basic historical sleuthing), I found Summers in the census and tried to make a few dates add up. The problem with online research is that often transcription of handwriting (the speedy pen of the census taker, the scratchy hand of the baptismal registrar) is full of errors. I eventually tracked Summers down in the 1861 census – at age 6, living with his parents, brother and sister at 80 Duke Street, New Basford. (Later in his career Summers will be responsible for several building projects in Duke Street, more on these in the next blog.)
By 1871, the Summers family address has become 83 Duke Street, 16 year old Lawrence is already noted as an “architects clerk” and he has gained another younger brother. I’ve not had much luck with the 1881 census and finding L.G. in 1891 was a little harder as his name has been transcribed as “Laurence”, but he turns up living with his younger brother Frederick and his family, still on Duke Street. L.G. is 35 by now and is still noted as an architects clerk. His brother (and his father, who lives next door) are both listed as “Lace Warpers”. In a trade listing from 1899 Summers seems at last to have moved out and he is listed as “Architect’s Assistant” living at 8 Corporation Oaks (while brother Fred is now of “Summers and Son” and is still at Duke Street).
All this tallies with what Darren Turner has compiled in his book. But what of Summers the man? Who was his wife? And why does he show up as living alone as a single man aged 56 in the Gresham Hotel on Carrington Street in the 1911 census? (This one was a challenge as the whole page has been very poorly transcribed with New Basford transposed to “New Brentford” and architect read as “servant”, making it look like Summers worked in the hotel.)
To find out about a life, you often have to read about a person’s death, and so it is with Summers, the most that was ever written about him was after his funeral. When Summers died in September 1940, his death made the front pages of the local papers. The notices list the mourners (articles can be found on The British Newspaper Archive – also free to use inside Nottinghamshire Libraries) and from here I was able to narrow down the search. Summers’ wife is only ever refered to as “the widow” which seems to have been standard practice at the time. But luckily the familial relationships of the other people present were noted, so we can discover that Summers’ brother in law was a Mr Lewis Byng. More plugging away at Ancestry eventually stumps up the jackpot. Mrs Summers, nee Louise Martha Byng was married to Lawrence George Summers in 1927, when she was 56 and he was 73. This was a year after the death of her father, Joseph Tussaud Byng a banker with 12 children, and just a short time before the death of Watson Fothergill.
Lawrence and Louise appear again in the 1939 register now living together at 59 Edwards Lane. Lawrence died the following year, in November 1940 and Louise lived on until 1955, until the age of 84.
Looking at the Ancestry entries for the Byng family, one name stood out as it had also come up in searches of the Newspaper Archive with reference to the theatre… one of Louise Byng’s younger (half-) brothers was Douglas Coy Byng and as it turns out he was on the stage… in fact he was a celebrated Pantomime Dame, singer, cabaret star and female impersonator famed for his double entrendres! Here he is talking about the panto dame tradition in 1982:
And here is a performance of a comic song!
Summers’ Brother in Law Douglas Byng had a long and illustrious show biz career, both he and L.G. Summers were at J.T. Byng’s funeral so perhaps they met?
Byng was instrumental in developing “glamour drag” and played upper class female comic characters.
Next time… more about L.G. Summers’ buildings in Nottingham. If you think you might be related to the Summers family who lived in New Basford it would be great to hear from you! The family turn up in a few family trees on Ancestry, so some cousins a few times removed might be out there…
Research can be a tricky business. The internet offers the researcher plenty of opportunities to find pictures, archived material and other useful records… but it can also throw up its own new set of new mysteries.
For instance, the top returned result in a Google search for L.G. Summers, Watson Fothergill’s assistant and the man who carried on working at the George Street office after Fothergill retired, is a page at the Watson Fothergill website* that hasn’t been updated in a while. There’s lots of tantalising nuggets of information there, but to the researcher looking to dig deeper there is a frustrating lack of citations and references to sources.
I’ve been looking for more information on Summers, looking for more about the man who seems to have been somewhat in the professional shadow of the more flamboyant Fothergill.
As I become more emersed in searching for all things to do with Nottingham architecture, I find myself running names through different search engines and websites. After finding a coffee cup that seems to be from The Black Boy Hotel on eBay (see previous blogpost) I check back from time to time to see what else might be out there. A while ago, a search for Lawrence G. Summers and a few variations on his name, threw up a link to some pictures that I hadn’t seen before. They were prints that were for sale and eventually I tracked them down to an online print gallery.
Design for a church by Lawrence G. Summers. Lithograph from The Building News Mar 20, 1874.
Further variations on Summers’ name (L.G., Lawrence C. etc) returned more results and I couldn’t quite believe my luck. Compelled by curiosity and reasonable prices, I bought the prints. It turns out that they are lithograph pages from the trade publication The Building News and they are not copies.
Design For A Town Hall by Lawrence G. Summers. Lithograph from The Building News, Dec 25, 1874.
On receipt of the lithographs I realised they were actually pages from the magazine and I was able to look up the accompanying articles. Archives of some of the issues are online. It turns out the designs were Summers’ winning entries in competitions.
From The Building News, Mar 20, 1874.
Tracing the lithographs to the relevent issues of The Building News in online archives reveals that Summers won the “National Silver Medal Prize” for his Church design, “The highest award in the kingdom”.
From The Building News, Dec 25, 1874
The town hall, also gained the Silver Medal in a prize from Kensington (from where architecture qualifications were dispensed). This appears to have been while Summers was a student at the Nottingham School of Art.
Excited about my finds, I did another search and discovered that the other lithograph in the set had been bought by someone (who I found on Twitter) who I think works at Nottingham Trent University, (perhaps even in the Nottingham School of Art building.)
The front elevation of Lawrence G. Summers design for a town hall. The Building News, Dec 25, 1874.
More on Summers in the next blog…
Meanwhile I treated myself to having the lithographs framed:
Somewhat wonky photos of the Nottingham-themed wall in my “office”.
I’ll be coming back with more walks in 2019 – I’m hoping to start around March and then do walks on Sunday mornings a least once a month. I will also be planning some early evening walks when the nights are light enough. I hope to try out a walk featuring the buildings of Nottingham’s other star Victorian Architect, Thomas Chambers Hine.
Meanwhile I’m doing a bit more research.. including a visit to The University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections Reading Room where they hold a copy (on microform) of Fothergill’s notebooks… Difficult to read in places… but here’s the point where he marks his name change…
From the pages of Fothergill’s Notebook… scanned onto microform…
