I’ve been asked to give a talk at Nottinghamshire Archives. To mark 90 years since the opening of the Council House, that impressive symbol of civic pride at the centre of Nottingham, I’m going to be talking about two of Nottingham’s favourite architects, Watson Fothergill and Thomas Cecil Howitt and looking for links between them.
I will be giving an illustrated talk mostly looking at Fothergill’s buildings around the Market Square and T. Cecil Howitt’s Council House and Exchange Arcade which opened in 1929.
There will also be chance to examine archive materials relating to the two architects and their buildings.
The event is on 10 May 2019, 2.30pm. Tickets are £5 each, available from the archives via Eventbrite. There are a limited number of free tickets for FONA (Friends of Nottinghamshire Archives) members.
The Hine Hike
Meanwhile there are still a few tickets left for my Thomas Chambers Hine walk, The Hine Hike, on 14 April 2019. Tickets are £12 each and include a hot drink and a cake at Debbie Bryan at the end of the walk.
Mother’s Day Heritage Tour
There is still time to join me as part of Debbie Bryan’s special Mother’s Day programme of events (31 March 2019. I will be leading a short tour of the architecture of The Lace Market, and your ticket includes a cream tea or afternoon tea (vegan and gluten free options available on request) at Debbie Bryan. Tickets here.
I will be adding more dates for The Watson Fothergill Walk soon, so sign up to the mailing list to get them as soon as they are announced.
I’ve had such a great response to the walks so far – thank you everyone who has booked or spread the word! I have a number of new events coming up…
Lucy throwing some shapes on Broadway! Photo: Stravros Pouricas @stavraki_notts
Sunday 31st March, 1pm – Mother’s Day Heritage Tour a short look around the Lace Market, followed by a choice of Afternoon or Cream Tea at Debbie Bryan. Tickets available here from Debbie Bryan.
Yummy afternoon teas at Debbie Bryan – part of the Mother’s Day package.
Sunday 14th April, 10am –The Hine Hike. I will be offering another chance to join me for a tour of the buildings of Thomas Chambers Hine. This time the walk includes tea (or coffee) and cake at Debbie Bryan.Tickets £12 on sale now.
Thursday 18th April, 6pm – Watson Fothergill Walk – Evening Edition. This is a slightly longer version of the walk, taking advantage of lighter evenings. It will conclude in Fothergill’s pub (drinks not included). Tickets £12, available now.
Tuesday 25th June, 2.30pm – On The Trail Of TC Hine. I will be giving an illustrated talk at West Bridgford Library, looking at some of Thomas Chambers Hine’s buildings in Nottingham. Tickets £3 here or in person from the library.
Learn more about the buildings of Thomas Chambers Hine from the comfort of the library! TICKETS
I hope you can join me at one of the events – sign up for the mailing list for regular updates when new dates are announced.
I am going to be doing another “Virtual Walk”, this time talking about the buildings of Thomas Chambers Hine in Nottingham, at West Bridgford Library on 25th June 2019 at 2.30pm. This will be a talk illustrated with photographs, duration approx. 1 hour.
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 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’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.
This garage is actually the work of Geoff Jordan who lives in a house by Summers next door! (Correction 2021 – LB)
Turret and gable at Bingham Road showing some familiar motifs. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.Bingham Road house by LG Summers, 1921. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
The house on Bingham Road (LGS25) was built for Thomas M. Basnett, a retired plumber’s merchant in 1921. See my Carrington Crawl walk for more details.
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.
