While I’m still available for walks (Covid-19 regulations permitting) as private bookings and I have gift vouchers on offer (if you’d like to have a walk to look forward to in 2021), I’m also trying to research more buildings for future walks and talks on the architecture of Nottingham. But I get so easily distracted…
I was thinking about a photo that I’d seen online, but could not remember where I’d seen it. (The constant stream of content on social media makes it tricky to pin down sources.) But, a few tweets fired at some contacts proved that I hadn’t imagined it, here was the picture:
Thanks Nottinghasm who originally found the photo in one of the Iliffe and Baguley Victorian Nottingham books which feature images from the illusive Nottingham Historical Film Unit. These books, published in the 1970s, are scattered around Notts Libraries Local History shelves…
A photo of the construction of the railway from Nottingham Victoria Station, the construction of which had caused the demolition of Watson Fothergill’s original office on Clinton Street. The photo shows Fothergill’s 1896 Furley & Co building, which now house Lloyds Bank on the corner of Lower Parliament Street and Clinton Street West (it features on The Watson Fothergill Walk).
The corner of Clinton Street West, from the opposite angle. Photo: Lucy BrouwerThe front of the building on The Watson Fothergill Walk. Photo: Dominic Morrow.
A flurry of further tweets uncovered a higher quality version of the railway construction photo:
Clinton Street railway cutting 1899. A clearer version of the photo. Thank you Mike
And another photo of railway work next to a Fothergill building turned up. This time the Nottingham and Notts Bank on Thurland Street, which is visible on the left hand side of this picture:
Thurland Street Railway Cutting (circa 1899) Thanks to Nottinghasm and Nigel for bringing this one to my attention. This is the reverse angle. Thurland Street Bank on The Watson Fothergill Walk. Photo: Alison Cussans.
Nigel King, who is a photographer himself, then ran the Clinton Street photo through a colouriser on the My Heritage website and this brought out some remarkable details!
Here’s a colourised version – you can just see the signage on the side of the Furley & Co building. Thanks NigelYou can even see the workmen! Thanks Matt
So you can see how a bit of research can turn up some great views of Nottingham’s past, but also how it’s very easy to get thrown off course! It’s also very difficult to credit photos correctly, the original books are full of such treasures.
When I first started working on tours – back in Glasgow, researching material for Walking Heads’ Clydeside Promenade – one of our contributors was journalist Peter Ross. I remembered Pete from my early forays into student journalism and so I’m always pleased when he has a new book out.
His latest, A Tomb With A View: The Stories And Glories of Graveyards, is available from 3 September 2020, it’s had rave recommendations from Hilary Mantel, Ian Rankin and Robert Macfarlane among others and I’ve been lucky enough to read it in advance.
In the book, Peter explores his own fascination with graveyards and looks at stories of people and places in cemeteries around Britain and Ireland. There are great chapters on Highgate in London, Greyfriars in Edinburgh and an in depth look at the work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The relationship between ghost story writers and their graves is explored. He traces remarkable lives as well as forgotten ones, and as always with Peter’s journalism, personal stories are the heart of what he writes about.
My interest was piqued earlier in the year by Peter’s tweets with photos from his local graveyard, Cathcart Cemetery. He had uncovered the grave of a Scottish architect, William Gardner Rowan, who would have been practicing around the same time that Watson Fothergill was working in Nottingham. Like Fothergill’s grave stone in Nottingham, this one was designed by the architect himself.
After finishing A Tomb With A View, I took a long delayed walk into Rock (Church) Cemetery at the top of Mansfield Road, Nottingham, close to where I’ve been starting my Carrington Crawl walks.
Gates of Rock Cemetery, Nottingham. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Both Watson Fothergill and Lawrence George Summers, his chief assistant, are buried there. I had seen Fothergill’s headstone on a long guided tour given by Nottingham Civic Society a couple of years ago, but I had not yet been to look for Summers. Thanks to a generous researcher, I had the plot number I needed help me find it.
I asked at the gate house for some help and James, the caretaker, looked out a copy of the St Mary’s Mount map and caught up with me at the far end of the graveyard (litter picking as he went).
Searching for LG Summers’ grave plot.
We tracked the plot number to find… a gap. There is no stone for Summers and his wife Louise (both buried here, 10 feet down according to the records). I was a little disappointed not to find a marker and snapped a picture in the hope that I’d be able to find the spot again. I can’t say I felt as comfortable in this cemetery as Peter Ross seems to be in graveyards in his book. It was slightly less daunting than it had felt on the 3 hour Civic Society tour, but no less Gothic.
LG Summers’ grave (unmarked). Rock Cemetery, Nottingham. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
It started to rain, but I pressed on to find Watson Fothergill’s grave. The stone he designed himself is unusual in shape and colour compared to those around it. Some people think it looks a bit like a bird table. In contrast to the lack of stone for Summers (who is understood to have been a more modest man), Fothergill makes a typical statement of his individuality with the hexagonal red granite column.
Grave of Watson Fothergill, Rock Cemetery, Nottingham. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
His names and death date are carved around the top in a typeface that appears familiar from his other work.
Grave of Watson Fothergill, Rock Cemetery, Nottingham. Photo: Lucy BrouwerGrave of Watson Fothergill, Rock Cemetery, Nottingham. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
At the bottom, I spotted this stag, perhaps a symbol of Nottingham, where Fothergill spent his working life and where most of his buildings are located.
A Nottingham stag? Grave of Watson Fothergill, Rock Cemetery, Nottingham. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
You can’t quite see the top of Mapperley Road, where Fothergill built his house, from here but the site is only a few minutes walk away. It would have been hard to have laid him to rest any closer.
I’d highly recommend A Tomb With A View. I was particularly struck by the chapter about the life and death of Dublin graveyard tour guide Shane MacThomais, where a friend of his sums up the secret of a good tour guide: “Make them laugh, make them cry, tell them something they know, tell them something they don’t.” And this is exactly what this book does, like a good tour it takes something you previously took for granted and makes you see it in a new way.
You can order A Tomb With A View by Peter Ross from your local bookshop (Nottingham has Five Leaves Books who are still doing orders by post). Or try Hive where you can support an independent book shop of your choice.
In support of Primary taking their talk series Tell Me Something I Don’t Know online for a special event, some of their past talks are now available to listen to on Soundcloud.
I talked about my research into Watson Fothergill’s assistant, Lawrence George Summers and some of the paths that led me to explore.
I’ve written about being on the trail of Summers before here and here.
Design for a Town Hall by Lawrence G Summers. Lithograph from The Buildings News, 1974.
The Fothergill book I refer to in the talk is Fothergill: A Catalogue of the Works of Watson Fothergill by Darren Turner, which is available from the author.
The door to L.G. Summers office, inside 15 George Street, Nottingham. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.Douglas Byng. Half-Brother of Louise, L.G. Summers’ wife, and one of “The Queens of England”
You won’t be surprised to learn that I enjoy watching programmes about architecture on television. A great series that presents an accessible introduction to the history of architecture is currently running on Yesterday – Architecture The Railways Built, with the wonderfully enthusiastic Tim Dunn.
This week’s episode looks at St Pancras Station, one of my favourite London buildings. The station was built by the Midland Railway and the adjoining hotel’s architect was Sir George Gilbert Scott.
St Pancras Station, 2019. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
As the programme discussed, the station was built using materials brought to London from the Midlands – Butterley Iron from Derbyshire, Mansfield red sandstone, Minton tiles from Stoke on Trent and Nottingham bricks.
St Pancras Station, 2019. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
These bricks share their distinctive orange colour with many of Watson Fothergill’s Nottingham buildings, and G G Scott is one of the architects celebrated by Fothergill on the facade of his George Street Office.
Detail from the front of the George Street Watson Fothergill Office. Photo: K.F. Onion Watson Fothergill’s Office, George Street, Nottingham. April 2020. Photo: Dan Simpkin
Looking at the details of the hotel at St Pancras, which was completed in the 1870s, it seems very probable that it was an influence on Fothergill, who would likely have travelled through it on his regular trips to London (to visit art galleries and to see cricket matches at Lords).
St Pancras Booking Office, now a bar. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
I took some photos last time I was in London. I also went for a drink in the hotel and got to explore the interior, which is fantastic. I think there it’s very likely that Fothergill would have admired the materials used and also the quality of the work, the flamboyant details and the overall beauty of the building. The carved stones, red bricks, sculpture and gothic flare are all recognisable features that Fothergill uses in his Nottingham buildings.
Half way up the cantilevered staircase of the Renaissance St Pancras Hotel. 2019. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Architecture The Railways Built continues on Tuesdays and Saturdays on the Yesterday channel, or on demand on UKTV player. Other episodes look at Kings Cross Station, the “Derby Gothic” style of the Midland Railway on the Settle to Carlisle line and much more.
For more on the building of St Pancras, I’d recommend architectural historian Simon Bradley’s short but thorough book, St Pancras Station.
The Watson Fothergill Walk is currently on hiatus due to Covid-19 restrictions, but you can purchase gift vouchers to redeem against bookings for future walks.
For a while now I’ve been working on a walk to look at some of Watson Fothergill’s domestic archtecture, and I’m happy to say that The Ukrainian Cultural Centre at Clawson Lodge have invited me to bring the new tour to their building on Mansfield Road, Nottingham.
A chance to go inside Clawson Lodge, a house designed by Fothergill on Mansfield Road.
Presenting The Carrington Crawl: a look at houses by Fothergill and his chief assistant Lawrence G. Summers in Mapperley Park, Sherwood Rise and Carrington, finishing with a chance to visit Clawson Lodge, where tea and coffee will be served.
The first of these new walks will take place on 4 April 2020, starting at 1pm.
A NEW WALK FOR 2020 from the producer of the Watson Fothergill Walk and the Hine Hike.
The Carrington Crawl: Victorian
Nottingham’s most flamboyant architect not only helped shape the city centre
with commercial landmarks, he also designed dwellings. Explore some of the
domestic architecture of Watson Fothergill and his assistant Lawrence G.
Summers with tour guide Lucy Brouwer. Discover more about the buildings, those
who built them, and the lives of the people who lived in them.
This walk will begin at the junction of Mansfield Road and Mapperley Road, outside St Andrew’s Church, it will then look at some of Fothergill’s houses in Mapperley Park, including the site of his own family home, continuing to Sherwood Rise, then return to Carrington to finish, after a walk of approximately 2 hours / 3km, at Clawson Lodge on Mansfield Road, where tea and coffee will be available.
Participants are asked to come prepared
for appropriate weather eventualities and to wear footwear suitable for city
walking.
Meet for 1pm start on Mapperley Road near the junction with Mansfield Road, outside St Andrew’s Church, Nottingham.
Advanced booking is essential as places are limited.
Previously, I began telling the story behind the building of The Bodega on Pelham Street. These days it’s a popular music venue and bar, but it’s been through several image changes over the years… I spoke to Alan Clifford on BBC Radio Nottingham about the building.
While it’s nothing to do with Watson Fothergill (as far as I know!) this building has opened up some interesting avenues of research and I’ve found myself scouring archives, reading about the social history of the English pub and obsessively asking people if they remember drinking there in the 1970s and ’80s…
Part one of this blog left off in 1904. The Bodega was listed as a Billiard Saloon, and seems to have departed from the Bodega Company’s Wine Bar model. The First World War hit the English licensed trade hard, with opening hours dramatically reduced, “treating’ (i.e. buying drinks for other people), giving credit and the long pull (serving more than the correct measure to attract custom) were all made illegal. (The minimum drinking age of 18 didn’t come in until 1923, and children could still buy alcohol from pubs to take home to their parents as long as it was in stoppered containers!) The war also pushed up the price of drink, and it stayed up, while the actual strength of drinks fell. For more on this and all things PUB, read The Local: A History of The English Pub by Paul Jennings. (By the time you read this I’ll have taken it back to the library...)
The 1915-16 Kelly’s Trade Directory of Nottingham lists Bodega Wine Co. Ltd. at 23 Pelham Street, trading as Bodega for the Bodega Wine and Spirit Merchants. Thomas S Poole, of 48 Harlaxton Drive is the manager. (Their phone number, Nottingham 1880, stayed the same into the 1940s.)
Robert Banks Lavery, the original owner of the Bodega Company, died in 1915 leaving his fortune of £13,2723 (approx. £ 15,049,738.89 in 2019) to various Catholic charities. The Bodega Company share price fluctuated after the war, but the business seemed to be steady around the country.
In March 1916, the Aberdeen Daily Journal reported that The Bodega Company had been admonished in the High Court by the makers of a certain beef drink, for passing off Oxo and “other meat preparations” when orders were placed for Bovril. The defendant denied the accusations but the injunction was passed and The Bodega Company paid costs.
1921 was a particularly bad year for the company’s share price, as the country recovered from the war.
In 1927, at the Nottingham Bodega, there was one of a spate of fires, leading to the Nottingham Evening Post headline: “Incendrism suspected!” Barrels of oil from the Nottingham Perfumery Co. caught fire in the passage. The branch is called The Bodega Hotel at this point, and a Mr Dominic is the employee who telephoned for the fire brigade, averting any serious damage.
In 1928, Slater’s Restaurants acquired Bodega. Slater’s were one of the largest catering companies in the world at this time. The million pound take over led to the company being known as Slaters and Bodega, bringing Bodega’s 30 outlets and 2 hotels into the company. Catering supplies had become integral to the operation. Bodega had previously been known for their outside catering, providing food and drink for race meetings, agricultural shows and the like. In 1931 there was a further takeover bid by Welsh firm RE Jones, but this failed.
One night in April 1931, the manager of the Nottingham Bodega, John Edward Marshall, was killed on Radford Road when a bus struck him after he alighted from a tramcar on his way home to Noel Street. A military man, he had seen action with the 10th Hussars. At least 11 members of staff from Bodega Wine And Spirit Company’s Saloon attended his funeral.
Plans in Nottinghamshire Archives show that improvements were made to the toilet facilities and the layout of the Bodega in 1933 and 1936. The ground floor now had a bar and a “cold counter”. Newspaper reports of a break-in by some young boys in 1940 refer to the Bodega simply as “a public house”.
In the 1950s, Billiards and Snooker were the main attractions of the Bodega in Nottingham, with several matches warranting newspaper reports on the games and their results.
In 1954, Slaters and Bodega were taken over by Charles Forte’s catering and hotel empire (to become Trust House Forte in later years). In 1956, JA Charles is installed in Pelham Street as the licensee.
Daily Herald, 23 December 1953. British Newspaper Archive.
Here the trail goes a little cold, as Bodega gets swallowed up into the Forte empire. But there are photographs showing what the outside of the Bodega looked like in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Bodega in 1962. You can just see the words ‘Manchester and Liverpool’ on the shield. from: Nottingham in the 1960s and 1970s by Douglas Whitworth.
By 1966 the Bodega in Nottingham was being run by Ind Coope Brewery from their Derby office. In 1967 they added the stairs to the front of the building and did some improvements to the toilets inside.
Sketch/trace of the proposed improvements in 1967, by architect G. Hakesly for Ind Coope. Nottinghamshire Archives.
Ind Coope were still running the pub in 1970 when they added an extension over both floors to the rear, containing the Ladies’ toilets upstairs and a store room downstairs.
Ind Coope were involved until at least 1983 (photos below). They had become part of Allied Breweries in 1961, merging with Ansells and Tetley Walker. Allied in turn merged with food and catering giant J. Lyons and Co. in 1978 to form Allied Lyons, then again in 1992 with Carlsberg to become Carlsberg-Tetley. I haven’t been able to find out (as yet) when Bodega left the Forte empire (as it doesn’t tend to be noted when companies are sold off).
The pub sign in 1983, harking back to the original idea of a Bodega as a wine cellar. Picture Nottingham.
Some people I’ve spoken to remember a bierkeller-feel to the pub in the 1980s. Licensing laws again have an effect on the way pubs are organised in 1987-1988, with the introduction of flexible drinking times.
Ansells, who are quoted in 1988 as the owners of the Bodega, ring the changes and refurbished the bar as Cairo’s Disco Bar… The Evening Post reported:
“ Three traditional city centre pubs are being transformed into upmarket bars for young trendsetters in a £860,000 refit by owners Ansell’s. By the end of August… Bodega will have become Cairo’s. Ansell’s plan to create a circuit of bars with style and sophistication for Nottingham’s young trendsetters – and hope they will also cut down on night-time city centre violence. … Cairo’s Disco bar, which opens around August 23, will spin the discs until 12,30am on the first floor with a bar down below. … Ansell’s regional director: “Nottingham has more class, more fashionable people with real style, than any other city in the East Midlands…”
New look for 3 city centre pubs. Evening Post 12 July 1988.
Cairo’s is remembered as being “very neon”… it also featured as a location in an episode of Central TV’s “Boon” in 1990.
By 1993 though, Ansells had refitted the bar once more, this time to become Irish-themed Rosie O’Brien’s Pumphouse, a chain with branches across the Midlands (there was another Nottingham branch in Carrington on Mansfield Road, in 2019 the pub is called Turners.)
If you’d like to hire me to conduct in-depth research and detective work into buildings, businesses, architecture or local history, please get in touch!
Earlier in the year, I was invited to talk to Alan Clifford on BBC Radio Nottingham about my walk The Hine Hike and the buildings of Thomas Chambers Hine. The programme recently got in touch with me to see if I’d like to talk to Alan on the radio again.
They asked if I knew anything about The Bodega on Pelham Street, as it is celebrating 20 years in its current incarnation as a live music venue.
As a detective, I’m even keener than Coleen Rooney, so I couldn’t resist delving into the archives to see what I could find. This building is NOT A FOTHERGILL nor is it related to his work at all as far as I know, but I’m really interested in developing the research side of my work. Here’s what I’ve found so far…
The Bodega, now at 16 Pelham Street, but previously listed as being No. 23 was built on the site of what was previously a pub called The Durham Ox.
The Durham Ox was the starting point for mail coaches to Lincoln and Newark. It was also in this pub that the Lacemakers and Printers Trade Unions would hold their weekly meetings in the early Victorian era. In 1855, the Inn made the transition to a minor music hall, hosting what were called ‘Free and Easies’, with customers supplying their own entertainment. The New Amateur Musical Society performed regularly at the Durham Ox, the Garrick Society staged dramatic reading there, and it was said to be the most popular of Nottingham’s music hall pubs. By 1900 it wasn’t considered to be quite fit to continue to be licensed. It was bought by The Bodega Company in 1901 and demolished.
They employed experienced London pub architect George Dennis Martin to rebuild the pub. The result was light and elegant, a long graceful archway with a hanging light. Projecting through a hipped roof is an exaggerated dormer with a swollen pediment on top bearing the date 1902.
Sketch/ tracing of GD Martin’s design for “Rebuilding of The Durham Ox”, taken from plans held by Nottinghamshire Archives.
The pub was still called The Durham Ox on the plans and was labelled as having a Bodega on the ground floor and a Club Room on the first floor. The Bar was on the right hand side, and the smaller arch at the front leads to a passageway.
The Bodega Company was started by Robert
Banks Lavery (b.1835-6), a Captain in the Lancashire Rifle Volunteer Corps, who
resigned his commission in 1861. Lavery & Co Bodega Spanish Wine Cellars
was set up as a Wine and Spirit Merchant with branches in Manchester, London
and Birmingham. In 1871 the company held wholesale and bottling vaults at St
Pancras and the retail business offered – “each wine clearly and
distinctly marked at its price per dock glass, bottle, dozen or quarter cask.
The taster pays the proportionate small price for his sample 3d to 1s 3d and is
therefore fully able to arrive at an opinion of quality.”
This delightfully verbose news item sums up the “Bodega” method of doing business:
The Bodega. – Few residents in London are unaware of the existence of the wine stores of Messrs. Lavery & Co. in Glass-house Street, Regent-Street, known more similarly by its trademark, “The Bodega”, where wines of the highest qualities are retailed in the smallest quantities, either in the form of the occasional glass for luncheon, or the modest gallon for limited homesteads. This kind of enterprise, it may be said, was altogether unknown in the wine trade, and it can easily be believed that it has excited no little jealousy on the part of the old-fashioned wine merchants, to whom the infringement of the traditions of the trade could but appear to be not only heretical but mischievous. The success that has attended the enterprise of Messrs. Lavery & Co. has proved that the latter surmises were correct. In Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Glasgow, Messrs. Lavery & Co. have opened the same character of wine bar, and with no difference in the result. The visitor “tastes” as a matter of passing convenience, according to his humour, and, if so minded can order more largely upon the sample set before him. The success spoken of has suggested the establishment of similar stores in the City, and yesterday afternoon a few friends were invited to Nos. 5 and 6 Bucklersbury, to inspect the new premises taken for the purpose. The arrangements are similar to those alluded to, both at the West End and in the provinces, and there can be little doubt the good fortune which is rewarded Messrs. Lavery & Co.’s efforts elsewhere will not be denied them in the heart of the great metropolis, where such institutions have not only larger public within reach as regards the daily necessities of refreshment, but one the best calculated to avail itself of the economical opportunities which it is the special province of “The Bodega” and its branches to afford.
27 August 1874, The Shipping And Mercantile Gazette, London.
The Bodega’s offered “wines from the wood” and Champagne by the bottle. In 1876, Lavery took one of his Manchester competitors to court for using the name “Bodega”, alleging that as a name and method of doing business it was not in use before he opened The Bodega Wine Company.
Lavery seems to have done rather well for himself, he disolved his original partnership with Francis Alfred Nicholson in 1871, and in 1881 he was to be found at Gosport taking to the waves in his yawl and cutter. In 1882 the Royal Portsmouth Yacht Club noted that member Mr. Lavery “used to run their refreshment department”. In 1895, Lavery and fellow board member of the Bodega Company, Edward Talbot Wolesley (b. 1849) wind up their interests in the Mexican Tobacco Plantation Ltd and in 1896, Lavery and another Bodgea board member, John Henry Mortimer Scott become directors of the vendor syndicate for the Almaraz Tin Mining and Smelting Company (with interests in Spanish tin mines).
In 1897, The Bodega Company is incorporated and shares are sold. It is described thus: “So long established that no description is necessary in the prospectus!”
1901, Standard Newspaper Advertisement. British Newspaper Archives. Some of these branches are noted on Pubwiki.
In 1901, as Edward Talbot Wolesley was buying up The Durham Ox, The Bodega Company had 10 branches in London, 3 in Birmingham and further establishments in Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, Dundee, Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Cardiff, Wolverhampton, Ryde, Wigan, Folkestone, Sheffield, Brighton and Hastings. (28 branches in all).
They provided Wine, Spirits, Liquors, Cigars and even sell their own Bodega Smoking Mixture in branded tins. The Bodega Trade Mark was protected, and the shield device (which can be seen on the front of the Nottingham building), was described as having “black letters on an orange band, crossing a shield with a garter at the foot.”
In 1901, Edward Talbot Wolesley found himself being tasked with purchasing The Durham Ox, and in 1902, GD Martin’s design was realised on Pelham Street.
Bodega shield (sketch) as it appears on the front of the building now.
The pub was licenced on behalf of Wolesley, Chairman of The Bodega Company Limited, London, at the Nottingham Sessions. “A great improvement had been effected. The building would be more open to police supervision than ever the old house was.” The upstairs Billiard Room was sanctioned as long as no side entrance was available for use by the public. Permission was granted.
1902 Advertisement for the Bexhill on Sea branch of Bodega, placed in the Bexhill on Sea Observer in December (around the same time that the Nottingham branch would have opened.) British Newspaper Archive.
In 1903, the licence for the Nottingham Bodega passed from Edward Talbot Wolesley to Cuthbert Johnson Collingwood, a bar manager for several branches of the chain, who had become Managing Director of the Bodega Company.
In 1904 the Nottingham Evening Post reported that Wolesley, former chairman of the company, had been declared bankrupt and resigned his post in 1903 over some irregularities connected to his purchase of the Durham Ox (and other establishments around the same time). He had received £9,180 in “secret commission” which was considered to be fraud!
The Bodega is listed as a “Billiard Saloon” around 1904 and regular advertisements for staff continue to appear in local papers. By 1909 there are 34 branches of Bodega around the country.
The Bodega, as it is in 2019. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Listen out to Radio Nottingham tomorrow (8 November 2019 around 2pm) for more about The Bodega and read the next installment of this blog coming soon!
