News – Page 16 – Watson Fothergill Walk

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.

This is Lawrence George Summers from http://www.watsonfothergill.co.uk/summers.htm and I don’t know where they got it from or when it was taken!

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.

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”.

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.

Watson Fothergill Walk Back in 2019

December 13, 2018December 13, 2018 watson

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…

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Stop Press: Sunday Walk Added. Beauty In The Details: Lace Market Tour

November 23, 2018December 6, 2018 Lucy

Thanks to everyone who came to Beeston Library for my “Virtual” Watson Fothergill Walk. I had some great feedback on the talk and I really enjoyed it. I hope I can do some more talks in this format as it’s a good way to experience part of the tour without the walking (and I get to wear a head-mic and pretend I’m a stand-up or Madonna… wish I had a photo!)

Beauty in the Details walk added, 9 December 2018.

A few folks on Facebook expressed an interest in a Sunday edition of the Beauty In The Details Lace Market Walk so I’ve added a date on 9 December 2018. The walk will be a short exploration of St Mary’s Gate starting at Debbie Bryan at 2pm. After a look around the area we will finish up at Debbie Bryan for a drink and a warm mince pie. Plus there’s 10% off other menu items in the tea room.

Get your tickets for £10 each here on Eventbrite.

There are still tickets for the Friday walk 7 December 2018 HERE.

Watson Fothergill in Nottingham

Light Industrial Buildings by Watson Fothergill.

November 19, 2018December 13, 2018 Lucy

After a good look around in Sherwood, I went for a further wander and caught a bus to Carlton to see if I could find the Brewery at Mar Hill (A71). Away from the bus route, deep into Carlton, I found the building. It was originally built for Mr Vickers, in 1899. It was convereted to residential use around 2005.

Mar Hill Primrose wide — Primrose Street side.

Mar Hill other side — From the other side, now a car park.

From what I can find online, the Carlton Brewery was a relatively short lived enterprised. The Vickers family held the licence at The Black’s Head pub close by in Carlton in the late 1800s.

“Brewing in Nottinghamshire” has an older picture of the building and states that the Carlton Brewery was short lived. With Mrs Vickers there in 1902 and Willam (her son?) there between 1904-1906. It was sold in 1904, 1906 and 1909. It became a laundry, then a print works and then it was used as a dye works owned by the Ilkeston Hosiery Finishing Company. The sequence of these changes is not entirely clear.

Along Primrose Street are also a series of 16 terraced houses built for brewery workers. It has been suggested that Fothergill also designed these but Darren Turner refutes this: The drawings survive in Nottinghamshire Archives but there is no stylistic evidence in the design, not documentary evidence on the surviving drawings to substansiate this rumour.

For more about buildings around Carlton, there is a U3A trail to follow, with some pictures of the other buildings.

Mar Hill Stair turret — Mar Hill Brewery now Sandpiper House, stair turret.

Mar Hill side — From the other side, later period Fothergill details, heavily cleaned up in conversion.

The other industrial building of Fothergill’s that survives in Nottingham is down on Castle Boulevard. I was down that way a few weeks ago, but because of the road it’s quite tricky to photograph. The Paper Warehouse (A59), on what was then Lenton Boulevard was built for Simons and Pickard, in 1893-94, the date stone reads 1894.

paper warehouse — The Paper Warehouse on Castle Boulevard.

Paper warehouse date stone — The date stone, 1894.

Paper warehouse from park side — Taken when the leaves were still on the trees, October 2018.

Paper warehouse towers — Brick patterns and finials, very Fothergill. All photos by Lucy Brouwer.

The rear of the building is on the canal side and has a more conventional warehouse look. This was one of the buildings for which Fothergill commissioned photographs from Bedford Lemere, and some of these can be found on Historic England’s website. There is another photo, taken from above, attached to the listing.

My next walk will be a little look around the Lace Market on 7 December 2018. Tickets are available here on Eventbrite.

If you’d like to keep in touch and hear about future walks, starting again in 2019, please sign up to my email mailing list.

Watson Fothergill in Nottingham

Fothergill Watson in Sherwood (slight return).

November 17, 2018March 6, 2019 Lucy

I took the opportunity to have another look at the Ukrainian Centre (A.K.A. Clawson Lodge A43) as the Sherwood Christmas Craft Fair was taking place. Not only did I see some charming work by local artists Corinna Rothwell and Eloise Renouf (among others), I also ate a nice little sour-dough pie from Small Food Bakery.

Mainly, I took a few more photos of Fothergill’s work on the house he built for Mr Doubleday (as mentioned in my earlier blog about Carrington.)

Clawson Lodge bay side — Clawson Lodge Bay Window

Clawson Lodge Window black — Clawson Lodge window detail

Inside was rather busy and has been significantly altered, the two downstairs rooms were full of crafy goings on so a bit difficult to see, but apart from the windows there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of original features. The house has been significantly extended and converted so, as with so many of these buildings, it remains the exterior that retains its original character.

Heading back towards Sherwood shops, I took the chance to photograph the terrace of four, three-storey houses on the corner of Bingham Road (A77). These are virtually the last project that Fothergill put his name to before he retired. They were built in 1906 with Fothergill as the client as he had previously bought up the land (next to some earlier houses he built on Mansfield Road. A46)

Bingham rd and next door — Loscoe Hill villas next door to Bingham Road houses on Mansfield Road. Date stone inbetween windows.

The timber clad gables are quite different to the earlier houses and look at lot more like the work that assistant architect Lawrence George Summers would continue to work on after Fothergill had left the office (see his later work in New Basford which is erroneously credited to Fothergill on Picture The Past etc.)

Bingham rd front — Mansfield Road view of the 1906 houses.

Bingham rd — Bingham Road view of the 1906 houses. Date carved into frame above doors. Now converted into flats.

Back in Sherwood, I went down Burlington Road to look for some slightly elusive, domestic Fothergills. This part of Nottingham is refered to as Cavendish Hill in the planning applications. The earlier Elberton House (A53) was built for Mr Gallimore, a clerk to Smith and Co’s Bank in 1890. Fothergill had worked on a branch of the bank in Long Eaton in 1889. Additions were made to the villa dated 1911, and these are the last known (minor) works for a private client to be signed off under Fothergill’s own name.

Hartingdon hardwick Elberton — Side view of the Villa at Cavendish Hill

Close by is the Burlington Towers built in 1892 as a three-storey villa for Mr Lindley (A54) it has ~~now been made into flats~~. UPDATE 18/11/18: I just received an email from the present owner of Burlington Towers, who has turned it back into one whole house. Apparently they were able to work from Fothergill’s drawings to get back to the original layout. There is a photo in the Bedford Lemere archive* from 1897 on Historic England’s website. (Elberton House also makes an appearance.)

Burlington face on — Burlington Towers with distinctive Fothergill affects.

Burlington light — Burlington Towers from the side. (all photos: Lucy Brouwer).

*It turns out this is the tip of the iceberg in terms of period photos of Fothergill buildings on the Historic England site, I will keep digging for more, but so far Fothergill’s own family home at Mapperely Road and the Sherwood Rise properties have been identified.

If you would like to engage my services for a walk or a talk about my Fothergill research please contact me. Meanwhile I’m leading a short walk in the Lace Market on 7 Decemeber with Debbie Bryan providing tea and mince pies post-tour. Tickets available from her website.

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Beauty In The Details: Christmas Edition!

November 8, 2018December 10, 2018 Lucy

I’m planning to do some more of my short walks in the Lace Market with Debbie Bryan in December. The walk takes place at 2pm on 7th December, with a look at the architecture and history of St Mary’s Gate. These tours will be similar to the Heritage Open Days tours that took place in September but this time will include tea or coffee and a warm mince pie at Debbie Bryan. You will also receive 10% off any other tea room orders on your visit.

Lucy Brouwer tour guide — Thanks to Katie at Debbie Bryan for the photo.

There will be a look at the Adams Building and other Thomas Chambers Hine work in the area, as well as Watson Fothergill’s Milbie House on Pilcher Gate. The whole thing should take around 45 minutes with time for tea and mince pies (and perhaps some creative Christmas Shopping) afterwards.

If this first one is popular we may add more dates in December.

Tickets are £10 each, available here from Debbie Bryan, or call into her shop on St Mary’s Gate.

Collaborators

Benjamin Creswick in London

November 5, 2018December 13, 2018 Lucy

A visit to London and I pulled in quite a few Victorian landmarks including Thomas Carlyle’s House, using the last couple of days on my Art Fund Card (highly recommended if you visit a lot of museums).

Carlyle’s House features a bust of the writer on the front of the building, the portrait sculpted by Creswick after a design by C.F.A. Voysey.

Thomas Carlyle by Benjamin Creswick — Carlyle’s House, Chenye Row, Chelsea, London. (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)

Benjamin Creswick, as you will remember if you’ve been on the Watson Fothergill Walk or if you read my earlier blog, sculpted the terracottas on two of Watson Fothergill’s Nottingham Buildings. His masterpiece however is the fantastic frieze that resides on the front of the Worshipful Company of Cutler’s Hall near St Paul’s Cathedral. I took a detour after an excellent walking tour of the Square Mile of the City of London with London Walks to have a look, and it did not disappoint.

Cutler’s Hall, Warwick Lane, St Paul’s, London (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)

Modelled from life (Photos: Lucy Brouwer)

The Watson Fothergill Walks will be back in Spring 2019 – sign up to the mailing list for all the latest news HERE.

Fothergill Buildings Outside Nottingham

A Second Fothergill Safari: Mansfield

October 7, 2018September 20, 2021 Lucy

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.

WFM 008 The Swan — The Swan, Church Street, Mansfield

WFM 009 Bank Church street — 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.

WFM 0010 Queens Walk — Queens Walk, Mansfield

WFM 0011 Queens Walk top — 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.

WFM 0026 Cattle Market from road — 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.

WFM 0028 Villa Nottm Rd wide.jpg — 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.

WFM 0033 Kings Arms — 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

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Watson Fothergill Walk 21 October 2018

October 2, 2018December 13, 2018 Lucy

Thank you to everyone who came out to walk with me on Sunday (30 September 2018). The next walk will be on 21 October 2018 at 10am.

Get your tickets here: EVENTBRITE

Once again the walk will conclude at Debbie Bryan with tea or coffee and cake included in your ticket. Debbie’s tea room also offers light lunches and other refreshments plus a wonderful gift emporium stocked with local crafts and unique homewares.

I am also going to be presenting an illustrated talk at Beeston Library, on 21 November at 2pm. The Watson Fothergill Virtual Guided Tour will be some highlights from the walk presented with photos in the library’s meeting room – so you can see Fothergill’s work without leaving your seat.

Tickets are £3 and available from EVENTBRITE or from Beeston Library.

Watson Fothergill in Nottingham

Watson Fothergill Safari Part Three: Mapperley Road

September 27, 2018December 13, 2018 Lucy

The last part of this search for some of Watson Fothergill’s buildings in Nottingham lead me to Mapperley Road (after a brief stop for much needed tea at Homemade Cafe in the Pavillion on The Forest Rec.)

Up on the corner of Mansfield Road and Mapperley Road is St Andrew’s House. (A48 in the Fothergill Catalogue.) Here Fothergill designed a three storey addition to the existing dwelling, plus a single storey waiting room and consulting room on the Mapperley Road side for a Dr Stewart in 1886. Fothergill had previously noted in his diary in July 1885 that the

“stucco house corner Mapperley Road Mansfield Road sold by auction to Stewart £2,600.”

As Fothergill himself lived a little further up Mapperley Road he would have been keeping a close eye on the developments in the neighbourhood. In 1886, Dr Stewart engaged Fothergill to add ‘Three Carriage Houses with hay loft over and harness room to the rear’ (MW23). The date stone bares the owner’s initials ‘IS’.

In Fothergill’s work on the house you can see several features that he was to use in his buildings – brick nogging patterns, turrets, black woodwork and bargeboards (there’s a slight Arts and Crafts feel to the porch) and large chimneys. There’s no trace of the “stucco” he mentions in his diary.

A few inconsistencies arise: The Historic England listing for the building has the owner as Dr Smart (per Ken Brand) and “St Andrews House” is now the name for a sheltered housing project close by. After Dr Stewart (I’m going to stick with the name quoted in Fothergill’s diary by Darren Turner), this building was used as an office (from circa 1929) by Thomas Cecil Howitt (1889–1968) the Hucknall-born architect responsible for the design of Nottingham’s Council House, the Raleigh head office on Lenton Boulevard and the Home Brewery building in Daybrook. (Perhaps another blog about him later!).

Back to Mapperley Road and to the site of Fothergill’s own family home. 7 Mapperley Road (A3) was the first house Fothergill built, almost as the foundation of his architectural practice. The first brick was laid in 1871. Fothergill had carefully selected the site:

“This Autumn (1870) after searching all over town for a site we liked I bought a piece of land on the northern side of Mapperley Road in Mr Patchitt’s estate.”

The Watson Family, as they still were, moved in on 26th March 1872, though the workmen were not yet out of the house. Fothergill purchased adjacent land from Thomas Birkin in 1901, to extend as far as Chestnut Grove, where they laid out an ornamental garden and a tennis court.

7 Mapp Rd 2 wf house — Picture of 7 Mapperley Road from http://www.watsonfothergill.co.uk/demolish.htm

Now the only trace of Fothergill here is his name and some rather ugly maisonettes with faux-classical porches.

Round the corner into Elm Bank we can find one of Fothergill’s assistant Lawrence George Summers’ surviving projects. Alterations and additions to a villa, which was for a time Elm Bank Lodge Guest House (LGS9). Work was done in 1893 for a Mr Thomas Jopling. Summers added a breakfast room, kitchen and scullery with a bedroom over. Of all Summers’ sole works, says Darren Turner, this design is the closest in style to the other work coming out of Fothergill’s office. (More on Summers in future blogs.)

The hand of Summers can also be seen in the next house I looked at, back on Mapperley Road. ‘Beechwood’ 30A Mapperley Road (A76/ LGS20) was built for Mrs HA Wilkinson in 1905. Fothergill and Summers are listed as joint architects on the project and it is one of the last projects Fothergill would have worked on before he retired.

The three storey house employs recognisable Fothergill motifs, the turret, the nogging and black woodwork, but feels more domestic in scale than some of the early villas.

And there I started to get a blister on my foot… so this portion of the Fothergill safari is over for now. I hope to explore some other parts of Nottingham and bring you some more buildings soon.

Meanwhile the walks on 30 September are now full… Sign up to my mailing list or follow the Watson Fothergill Walk Facebook page for news of more events.