Events, Fothergill Buildings Outside Nottingham, talk

Fothergill Talk at Mansfield Library

Lucy will be giving an illustrated talk on Fothergill’s Buildings in Mansfield live and in person at Mansfield Central Library on 10 May 2022 at 2pm. Tickets are £3 each and available from the library or via this link on Eventbrite.

Tickets for my talk on Fothergill in Mansfield

Fothergill Watson (as he was then) was born in Mansfield in 1841 and many of his early buildings came about through his connections in the town. The illustrated talk looks at Fothergill’s family, the buildings that he designed in the town that remain, including houses, shops and the Cattle Market. There will also be a chance to discover some of the buildings that have been demolished.

Book now to avoid disappointment!

Lucy is also available to give talks on local architects to groups in Nottinghamshire, in person or via Zoom. Email for more details.

Fothergill Buildings Outside Nottingham, Research

Fothergill Outside Notts: Dunedin, Sydenham

A look at one of the few buildings that Fothergill worked on outside Nottinghamshire.

I was in the neighbourhood recently, so took the opportunity to have a closer look at an intriguing building. Dunedin, now called Burnage Court, on Lawrie Park Avenue in Syndenham, South London. It’s something of a mystery how Fothergill Watson came to work on additions to this house, but I’ve done some digging to see what I can find. (As this was in 1888, it was before his name change to Watson Fothergill.)

Dunedin, now Burnage Court, Sydenham. Photo: Lucy Brouwer

I took some photos from the road, and then I knocked on a couple of doors to see if there was anyone in. Huge thanks to Ritchye for talking to me and letting me have a little look around inside her flat. (It was on the market last year and photos are still online).

The date stone on the side of the building. The carved animal at the top looks a little like the one on the Fothergill villa on Mansfield Road, but I’m uncertain if these are original features. Photo: Lucy Brouwer

There is a date stone on the side of the house that matches the date in Fothergill’s 1888 diary when he records a visit “to Littleton’s house Sydenham about additions” (quoted in Darren Turner: Fothergill: A Catalogue of The Works of Watson Fothergill, new edition with photos now available).

Certainly the red brick parts of the house and some of the details seem recognisable as part of Fothergill’s oeuvre, but “additions” points to the fact that he was working to alter an existing property, perhaps in a similar way to the work done on St Andrews House in Nottingham, where he added sections to an existing Georgian house. 

A little digging uncovered a few clues. Not least this painting by Impressionist painter Camile Pissarro…

Camille Pissarro The Avenue, Sydenham 1871 Oil on canvas, 48 × 73 cm Bought, 1984 NG6493 https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/NG6493

Compare the view that Pissarro painted “en plein air” during his London exile during the Franco-Prussian war with the view down Lawrie Park Avenue today and St Bartholomew’s church is still easy to spot… I believe Dunedin, as it would have been before Fothergill’s additions, is the cream-coloured building near the centre of the picture.

A search of local blogs reveals that there was a house called Dunedin on the spot since around the 1860s and it was adjacent to Westwood House. The road was renamed Lawrie Park Avenue later. The clues from Fothergill’s diary entry start to make some sense.

The rest of Fothergill’s diary entry reads: “The mansion in the grounds called Westwood was built by Pearson 3 or 4 years ago. Bright red bricks with elaborate Royal and figure Carvings to all windows. The roof all of bright red tiles with turrets etc. This and the houses of the two sons lighted by electricity throughout.”

So, we have Mr Littleton, his two sons and a mansion called Westwood built by Pearson.

Mr Littleton was Henry Littleton (1823 – 1888), a music publisher who had risen in his profession to take over the Novello empire. (No relation to the performer Ivor Novello – who took the name for the stage as it was well known in musical circles). I delved into Michael Hurd’s exhaustive history of the firm, Vincent Novello & Co and Two Centuries of Soho by JH Cardwell. (available to browse on the Internet Archive).

Henry Littleton in later life, from Two Centuries of Soho by JH Cardwell 1898.

At his retirement about a year before his death, Henry had appointed his sons, Alfred Henry Littleton (1845-1914) and Augustus James Littleton (1854-1943) as directors of the firm which was then called Novello, Ewer & Co. Both sons had joined the firm aged 17, with Alfred eventually becoming the head of the firm and Augustus looking after the bookbinding and printing side of the enterprise.

Alfred H Littleton from The Musical Times 1911
Augustus Littleton as Falstaff (with sword) circa 1886, performing with the Irving Dramatic Club. (via Google images).

Henry Littleton purchased a farmhouse on the south slope of Sydenham’s West Hill in 1874, this was the first version of Westwood House. He engaged the architect John Loughborough Pearson to extend and remodel the house in red brick, with the air of a French Chateau. The house had “gables, turrets and tall chimneys sprouted everywhere. Spacious windows with heads of great composers set in stained glass medallions along with a coat of arms drummed up for Sir Henry de Littleton”. The effect was theatrical.

Westwood House was not only a “noble and imposing mansion with a carriage drive and ornamental lodge at the entrance” (as it was described when it was sold in 1895), it also boasted a teak panelled music salon. It opened in July 1881 and Henry Littleton used the house to host big names whose work he published, including Dvorak and Franz Liszt .

Frank Loughborough Pearson, the architect’s son, was to marry Alfred’s daughter Cecilia Littleton and go on to work on a headquarters for Novello and Co on Wardour Street. There is a very tenuous connection to Fothergill here: Pearson worked with sculptor Nathanial Hitch, who may also have worked on the friezes on the Nottingham and Notts bank HQ.

Augustus Littleton is cited as the source for photographs in several books of the period dealing with interior design and sculpture. Indeed, the rest of Fothergill’s 1888 diary entry concerns viewing a bust of Liszt that Augustus Littleton had in his drawing room, which is likely to have been a clay model for this sculpture by Boehm.

In the 1881 census, both Alfred and Augustus Littleton and their families are listed as living in the vicinity of West Hill. Alfred at The Avenue, Dunedin House and Augustus at Laurie Park Gardens. By 1891 all the Littleton family members seem to have left the area. Alfred was then residing in Hyde Park Gardens, but several of his children were born in Syndenham.

So, it’s difficult to confirm who commissioned the work on Dunedin, how Fothergill might have been connected to the wealthy Littleton brothers and for how long they might have stayed in the house (and, indeed, if they lived in it after Fothergill worked on it). The 1939 register indicates that the house had been turned into flats by that time, with some of it empty when the register was taken.

Westwood House was to suffer a more drastic fate… It was sold off and in 1899 became the Passmore Edwards Teachers’ Orphanage, it closed in 1939 and was demolished in 1952. There is now a housing estate and a care home named Westwood House on the site.

The front of Burnage Court. Photo: Lucy Brouwer

The back of the house. Photo: Lucy Brouwer

The house is now divided into 8 flats, one was recently on the market for rent, and one is occasionally available as accommodation via Airbnb.

The building is not listed, and various alterations have been made over the years. A lot of coloured glass, which looks typical of Fothergill, remains. Looking closer at the photos, I think that Dunedin was originally made of yellow brick (typical of other houses in the area) and Fothergill added red brick elements, timber details and decorations, perhaps to compliment the adjacent Westwood House. The chimneys, the brick nogging, the timber cladding inside and the tower all make sense in this context.

If anyone knows any more about Dunedin, The Littleton family or Fothergill’s possible connections to South London please contact me. (Fothergill attended Mr Long’s School, Clapham Park School as a child and visited Upper Norwood with his wife in 1883. He later named some streets in a speculative development in Nottingham Clapham, Norwood, Brixton and Sydenham, so perhaps had some affection for the area?)

Watson Fothergill Virtual Walk will be back in 2021 and walking tours of Nottingham will resume in the Spring. Please ensure that you have joined the mailing list for updates!

Fothergill Buildings Outside Nottingham

A Second Fothergill Safari: Mansfield

Fothergill Watson was born in Mansfield in 1841. Until the death of his father, he lived at a house called The Linden on Chesterfield Road. (I believe it was situated somewhere close to where the big Tesco is now). His half-brother, Robert Mackie Watson lived at the Linden until his own death in 1906.

Fothergill and his mother left Mansfield for Nottingham on the death of his father in 1852, and Fothergill trained to become an architect. He had his own office in Nottingham by the early 1860s. Fothergill’s work in Mansfield was mainly for The Mansfield Improvement Commission (a forerunner of the Borough Council) of which Robert Mackie Watson was the chairman…

The earliest of these buildings was the 1874 rebuilding of the Mansfield branch of the Nottingham and Notts Bank. Fothergill was to build their Thurland Street headquarters in Nottingham (seen on the Watson Fothergill Walk).

I took a wander round Mansfield with my trusty copy of Darren Turner’s Fothergill Catalogue to find which buildings are still standing. The bank on Church Street (A7) has long since been absorbed into the adjacent Swan Inn.

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The Swan, Church Street, Mansfield

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The site of the Nottingham & Notts Bank. Ground floor altered. Photos: Lucy Brouwer

Next, I went up to the other side of the Market Place (past T.C. Hine’s Bentinck Memorial) to the other Fothergill commission of 1874, some shops and offices at the back of the Town Hall. Where Exchange Row meets Queens Walk (A8), these presently look empty. The twin gable and the pillar mullions in the windows seem to be a signature of Fothergill’s Mansfield buildings of this period.

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Queens Walk, Mansfield

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The capitals on the mullions are the only hint of Fothergill’s later flambouyance. Photos: Lucy Brouwer

Following the map in the book, I headed for Albert Street and almost missed the next building. I must have passed this hundreds of times but only when I looked closely did I spot the telltale hints of Gothic on no. 11. It is now a solicitor’s office but was built as a house and shop in 1875 (A11).

WFM 0014 Albert st.jpg
11 Albert Street, Mansfield. Hiding in plain sight.

WFM 0017 Albert St ballflowers
Telltale ballflowers – This is a Fothergill! Photos: Lucy Brouwer

As it was lunchtime, we had a moment of inspiration! The Cattle Market built between 1876-78 (A15), the best known and most distinctive of Fothergill’s Mansfield buildings is now an Italian Restaurant – Ciao Bella – so we went to Nottingham Road for il menu del giorno.

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Mansfield Cattle Market, now an Italian Restaurant.

WFM 0021 Cattle Market far side
The Cattle Market building from the opposite side. Photos: Lucy Brouwer

The toilets in the restaurant are upstairs, so you get to accend the spiral staircase in the turret. The Cattle Market stopped operating in 1987 (I can just about remember what the yard looked like before Water Meadows was built on the site). The building that is retained was the Market Keeper’s residence… this was the last job Fothergill did for the Improvement Commission.

There is one more building on Nottingham Road, and again we had to look closely to find it. The Villa (A18) is described as being two storey with attic rooms and at first we were distracted by the gloomy gothic vicarage across from the disused church on Nottingham Road, but a closer look at the map sent me back over the road and we realised that the Fothergill villa was this much plainer house, converted first into a Ukrainian Institute then used as a Family Centre, there was a removal van outside, so it looks like it is now being used as flats.

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The Villa on Nottingham Road, porch not original!

WFM 0029 Villa Nottm Rd window
Again the window detail seems to be the best sign of the hand of Fothergill. Photos: Lucy Brouwer

Finally, I decided to walk a little further out of town to find a pub that Fothergill had built for Mansfield Brewery (his Father in Law’s business) in 1876. The Kings Arms (A13) is a rebuilding of the pub previously on the site demolished at the widening of Newgate Lane. Darren Turner presents overwhelming evidence that this is indeed a Fothergill building and looking at the details around the entrance, I would have to agree.

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The Kings Arms, Mansfield

WFM 0034 Kings Arms door
The entrance to The Kings Arms, photos: Lucy Brouwer

There are a couple of other buildings of Fothergill’s still standing in Mansfield, three houses on St John’s Street (A14) built in 1876, and a house on Crow Hill Drive built in 1880 (A28) both of which he built for his half-sister Mrs Frances Page Wilson. This last is now used by the NHS and is called Heatherdene, it seems to have been Fothergill’s last Mansfield building, as the majority of his work was then done in Nottingham.

WFM 002 Crow Hill Light
Villa on Crow Hill Drive