A look at the domestic architecture of Watson Fothergill and his chief assistant L.G. Summers in Mapperley Park, Sherwood Rise and Carrington (with tea and coffee available at Clawson Lodge and a chance to look around inside) 2 hours/ 3km.
Watson Fothergill Walk – 27 June 2021, 10 am The original city centre walk, looking at the flamboyant Victorian architecture of Watson Fothergill, also known as Fothergill Watson! 2hrs/ 2km.
Tickets for all walks are £15 each and numbers are limited to 12 people per tour (for now!)
Lucy is also available during the week for private tours for small groups so please email if you have a group of friends or family who would enjoy discovering Nottingham from a new angle!
Here’s another instalment in my occasional series looking at architects who were active in Nottingham at around the same time as Watson Fothergill.
Albert Nelson Bromley (1850-1934) is probably best known for his long involvement with Boots The Chemist, but he was responsible for many buildings in Nottingham ranging from schools to shops, warehouses to telephone exchanges.
Albert Nelson Bromley. Picture from Work & Sport (Bromley House Library)
Albert Nelson Bromley was born in Stafford in 1850, he was very young when his father died and the family moved to Nottingham to live with his uncle, the architect Frederick Bakewell (among his notable buildings – Nottingham School of Art, now NTU’s Waverley Building). After going to school in Nottingham and Lincoln, Bromley joined Bakewell in his office on Pelham Street and was articled as a pupil. Having joined RIBA as a fellow in 1872, he was on the point of moving to Manchester to take up a post when it was suggested that he spend some time on the continent sketching buildings.
Bromley spent 14 months in 1872-73 on an extended architectural sketching tour of Europe. In all, he visited 90 towns including Bruges, Chartres, Heidelberg, Prague, Venice, Siena, Athens and Constantinople in 9 countries. (Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Holland).
Title page, Work And Sport by A. Nelson Bromley (Bromley House Library)
In Work And Sport: Memories of An Architect, Fisherman And Golfer, which was published in 1934 towards the end of his life, he states that the object of writing the book was “mainly to reduce to readable proportions the Continental Diary of my Architectural travels during 1872-3.” On departing for his travels he was advised by an unnamed ‘Artist of Architectural subjects’ to:
“Go as an Artist with a knapsack on your back… the simplest thing – look as dirty as possible – don’t shave – wear a large slouch hat and smoke a very black pipe, you will go everywhere for half price. The guides will not bother you and the pimps and gay ladies will not give two-pence for you, as an Artist has no money.”
Without foreign languages, Bromley recalls being somewhat lonely and miserable, having left behind “a very nice girl” who was to become his wife (Elizabeth, whom he married in 1878). He did eventually meet some “rough diamonds” who were willing to stand him a drink. A sample encounter: ‘Oh I see you are an Artist – come and have a drink. Well, you will not get much out of that job.’ ‘No, I am studying for an Architect.’ ‘Oh, them blokes, well, you’ll make a bit more out of that.’
The rather hazy recollections of people and places (mostly places) in the ‘Work’ section of the book are accompanied by plates of the watercolours that Bromley made of various buildings on his travels. The rest of the book is mostly concerned with fishing. There is frustratingly little about the buildings that Bromley worked on himself.
On his return to England, he re-joined his uncle, Frederick Bakewell at his office, at 5 Victoria Chambers, Victoria Street. By 1875 they had moved to 3 1/2 Weekday Cross. One of their significant commissions was an early instance of Council Housing, the Victoria Buildings (Bath Street). Their partnership was dissolved on 15 May 1876. Bakewell died in 1881, aged 57.
Bromley went on to become the principal architect for the Nottingham School Board, after being chosen as one of the initial four practices to be commissioned to build schools (see blog on Abraham Harrison Goodall). He did some work for the Nottingham Tramway Company and built houses in Sneinton and Bulwell. Hucknall Public Library was built to Bromley’s design in 1885-6.
15 & 17 Newcastle Drive, photo: Lucy Brouwer
The precise date of the houses Bromley built in The Park Estate, including his own at 15 Newcastle Drive (originally 24 Pelham Terrace) are not confirmed (Wikipedia cites an early estimate of 1878, but The Nottingham Park Houses project plumps for circa 1890).
Bromley’s work in The Park seems to be concentrated on Newcastle Drive. He not only built numbers 15 & 17, but it is also now proven that he built 21 & 23 (records exist in the contemporary architectural photographer Bedford Lemere & Co’s archive). Glendower, the house at 27 Newcastle Drive may also be by Bromley (rather than by Watson Fothergill as is often claimed). Stylistically it has more in common with its neighbours and it lacks the richness that typifies Fothergill’s other houses in The Park. (See notes on The Park Estate in Darren Turner’s Fothergill: A Catalogue of The Works of Watson Fothergill).
Glendower was built for William Foster (perhaps the WF inscribed on the front of the house leads to connections with Watson Fothergill?). I’ve found evidence (Nottingham Journal 10 Nov 1881) that Bromley tendered for builders to work on a furniture depository for Foster’s Furniture company Foster and Cooper in 1881 and I personally don’t think this building is by Fothergill either.
Bromley was steadily busy through the 1890s, with buildings which include an office and telephone exchange for The National Telephone Company in George Street in 1898, look for the candlestick telephone motif.
Telephone Exchange, George Street. Photo: Lucy BrouwerDetail, Telephone Exchange, George Street. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Outside Nottingham, there was the baroque classicism of Telephone House built for the same company in London (1898-1902).
Other buildings still standing in Nottingham include a wholesale fruit store for Buckoll, King & Co on Parliament Street (now Argos) and offices for Wells and Hind on Fletchergate (now part of the Ibis Hotel development). Deep red terracotta facings are a noticeable feature.
Former Fruit Warehouse, Parliament Street. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Bromley is possibly best known outside Nottingham for his work for the Boots Company. He began this association with Alterations and Additions to their Island Street works in 1895. This lasted into the 1920s with stores being built around the country. In Nottingham, the company’s flagship store on the prime site of High Street and Pelham Street (now Zara) was designed in a glazed light terracotta with an air of Art Deco in the ornate shapes of the shop windows.
Former Boots Store, Corner of Pelham Street & High Street. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Details of the Boots No. 1 Store (now Zara). Note the various rather muscular putti – something that T. Cecil Howitt also liked to add to his buildings
In 1903, Thomas Cecil Howitt joined Bromley’s office as a pupil, by now they were located in the Prudential Buildings on Queen Street. Work for Boots continued into the 1900s – including the shop and cafe Boots Store No. 2, 1906, now The Embankment pub. Bromley also worked on The National Provincial Bank (now Virgin Money) 1910 (demolished and rebuilt when the Council House was built by Thomas Cecil Howitt circa 1927) and additions and alterations were made to the Long Row/ Market Street Griffin & Spalding department store (until very recently Debenhams) 1910, with more work on the store in the post-WW1 years.
Bank on High Street/ Long Row. Photo: Lucy BrouwerGriffin & Spalding (Debenhams on the day it closed). Photo: Lucy BrouwerMore Body Building Putti. Debenhams frontage. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Harry Graham Watkins joined the firm and became a partner and they ran a London office for a time – Thomas Cecil Howitt notes on his CV that he was the manager in 1908. The majority of their work was probably on bank branches, Boots stores and Telephone Exchanges around the UK. The Boots stores were often designed with a nod to the local vernacular or historical styles. An incomplete list of branches includes Beeston, Derby, Exeter, Gloucester, Kingston-on-Thames, Lichfield, Shrewsbury, Winchester and York. For more on Boots stores around the UK, read the excellent Building Our Past blog.
Just before WW1 Bromley visited New York, Boston and Washington in the USA. He noted that the skyscrapers in New York assumed ‘the appearance of a fretful porcupine.’
In the 1930s, Watkins retired and the practice was joined by Bromley’s grandson Thomas Nelson Cartwright and the rather elusive Thomas Herbert Waumsley. Bromley celebrated his 80th birthday in 1930, so how active he was in the new partnership is debatable. Cartwright went on to join the firm established by Robert Evans Jr in a partnership that became Evans, Cartwright and Wollatt in 1948.
Albert Nelson Bromley died in August 1934 at his home 15 Newcastle Drive. His buildings, as Ken Brand notes, are neither distinctly Victorian nor blatantly Modern(e) but there is a certain feeling of neatness and proportion. His Evening Post obituary summed up his involvement in the appearance of the city:
‘…Mr Bromley was as keenly concerned about the preservation of the amenities of town and country as he was about his personal affairs, He strove… to arouse the public mind to the loss of beauty caused by such blots as ribbon buildings, hideous advertisements, ugly or inharmonious buildings, and the demolition of historic places.’
The Watson Fothergill Walk is back! I’ve set a date for a walk in the city centre on 30 May 2021 starting at 10 am. I’ve reduced that capacity to allow for social distancing so there will be just 12 tickets available!
This is the original Watson Fothergill Walk starting at Nottingham Tourism Centre. Learn about the buildings of one of Nottingham’s most prominent Victorian architects, his signature style and the influence of the Gothic on the city’s buildings. A walk of approximately 2km (1.25 miles)
My friends at the arts organisation Primary are currently crowdfunding to improve their building, which was formerly a school, at the corner of Ilkeston Road and Seely Road, Nottingham. You can help them to improve accessibility and make their studios, galleries and community venues even better for everyone and at the same time you get to own some original artworks, experiences and other great rewards. More info in their video:
Built in 1882-3 as Ilkeston Road Board School, it is an early Nottingham example of a purpose built school from the Victorian era of compulsory elementary education. Education in Victorian Nottingham faced particular challenges, as many children were employed in the textile industries. In 1870, the Nottingham School Board was established to offer a programme of elementary education and by 1903 secondary education became available. In 1877, Basford, Lenton and Radford were subsumed into Nottingham City and so this school, which is technically in Radford, was part of that scheme.
The first wave of Nottingham Board Schools don’t follow a single style. The architects Evans and Jolley, George Thomas Hine, Albert Nelson Bromley and Abraham Harrison Goodall were all appointed by the School Board in 1881 and worked on designing schools until Bromley became the School Board’s sole consultant architect in 1891, when his rather more severe Renaissance style became dominant.
The Ilkeston Road Board School building (now Primary) was also built in Renaissance Revival style using red brick with decorative terracotta and ramped gables.
As you can see from these photos, the front of the building has been extended.
The architect for this building was Abraham Harrison Goodall (1847-1912). Born in Bradford, Goodall was articled to Richard Charles Sutton in Nottingham and was his assistant until 1874. R C Sutton is notable for the Romanesque architecture of the Congregational Church on Castle Gate (1863) which, because of its polychrome brickwork, is occasionally mistaken for the work of Watson Fothergill.
In 1874 A H Goodall moved to his own office at 14 Market Street, Nottingham.
Nottingham Journal, June 1874 (British Newspaper Archive)
Other Nottingham buildings by A H Goodall include the 1887 Poor Law Guardians Office (now the Registry Office) on Shakespeare Street. This is a lush example of Italo-French Gothic with foliage and carving, with clustered shafts (columns) at the windows.
The Poor Law Guardians Office, 1887. AH Goodall. Photo: Alan Murray Rust
Goodall was also the architect of a terracotta-clad Lace Warehouse for Boden & Co on Fletcher Gate in the 1890s.
22 Fletcher Gate, Boden & Co Warehouse now Das Kino pub. Photo: Wikimedia
1909’s Westminster Buildings, is a bold but coarse piece of Baroque Revival with a broken pediment, also by A H Goodall.
A H Goodall was also known for his work on several Methodist New Connexion Churches across the country. He built Sycamore Road School (1886) in St Anns, Nottingham. He became a Licentiate of the RIBA in 1911, a classification of membership for architects who had not taken formal examinations, he had however taken some classes at the Nottingham School of Art, and was given a prize for the design of a piano in 1868. He married Emma Sharpe in 1876, they lived at Noel Street and had at least 5 children. Their oldest son, Harry Hornby Goodall, followed his father into the architecture profession as well as being a noted cricketer who designed the Dixon memorial gates at Trent Bridge.
In 1906 AH Goodall had been in business for 31 years but following a series of “unwise speculations” and a failure to keep proper accounts he was declared bankrupt. The School Board work had now been passed to the city architect. Just the year before, in May 1905, Goodall had written to the Nottingham Journal to criticise the “unnecessary expenditure on school buildings”, he calculated that spending on furniture was almost double what it had been in his time on the job, and that “This is the principal of the very liberal basis with a vengeance… Small wonder the education rate (tax) is high.”
The Ilkeston Road Board School, which became Douglas Junior and Infant School and eventually Douglas Primary School, ceased to be a school in 2008. The school was much loved by its staff and pupils and held a special place in the local community. After a period where the building’s future was uncertain, it became Primary, which uses the old classrooms as artist’s studios and communal spaces as exhibition rooms, in 2011.
As a Grade II Listed building, changes can only be made when strictly necessary and the fabric of the building is well preserved. Some 1960s additions at the back of the building remain as well as the integral layout of the former classrooms, which lend themselves to use as artists’ studio spaces. The interior has been painted white and some false ceilings have been removed revealing the scale of the Victorian classrooms.
Primary took the decision to purchase the building from Nottingham City Council in 2020 and with their crowdfunding campaign the plan is to make the building more fit for its current purpose, improving sustainability and providing level access so that it can remain a useful asset to the local community. Toilets will be improved and the open space in the former playground and rear garden will be developed.
Exhibitions in the building are regularly open to the public. The ‘Making Place’ Exhibition is open 21 May – 3 July, 2021. It reflects Primary’s long term community programme, which looks at how we all interact with Nottingham’s varied local history.
Making Place Exhibition being re-installed at Primary. Photos: Lucy Brouwer
Help Primary to hit their Crowdfunding target – or even to exceed it – by signing up for one of the great rewards on offer – these include exclusive artworks, books, masterclasses, badges and walks with artists.
Find out more about Victorian Nottingham and the architects who built it by joining Lucy for one of her Watson Fothergill Walks – or Zoom talks.
The next Watson Fothergill Virtual Walk Zoom session will be on Thursday 22 April 7 pm. Tickets are £5 with a small booking fee (and you only need one ticket per household/device).
I’m hoping to get full scale “real life” walks going again this summer, when restrictions on social distancing will hopefully be relaxed… Meanwhile until then, private walks for small groups can be booked at times to suit your group. For more details, contact Lucy.
Walking The Carrington Crawl in 2020. Photo @bigoldhouse
While I’m really looking forward to being able to lead tours again, until at least 17 May 2021, the maximum number of people that can be accommodated on a guided walk is 6* (or groups from 2 households). The guide (me!) is NOT included in that number.
While social distancing remains in place, 8 people (from 2 households) is the maximum group size that can be accommodated. If you’d like to organise a private walk then please contact Lucy to pick a date.
The more I work on Fothergill, give talks and promote my guided walks, the more contact I receive from people who want to know if the building they have spotted is the work of Watson Fothergill, architect.
Recently, I’ve been sent several photos, either houses people have spotted while on urban walks or pictures they have seen posted on social media, each with the question: Is this a Fothergill?
But is it a Fothergill? Pics from l-r, Wilford Grove/ Wilford Crescent East by Chris Pyke-Hendry, Hardwick Road by Lucy Iliffe and Lenton Boulevard spotted on Facebook (originally from Picture Nottingham)
I always direct people to Darren Turner’s Fothergill: A Catalogue of The Works of Watson Fothergill, Architect, an extremely thorough piece of research that has been invaluable to me in putting together my tours. In the book, Darren has found evidence for every attribution he makes and the results are compelling. However, there remain a group of buildings he calls “The Awkward Squad”
Many of these dodgy attributions persist. This goes back to the over-enthusiastic obituarist in the Nottingham Journal who in 1928 laid claim to Fothergill’s distictive buildings being found in “almost every city and town between Nottingham and London.” (I’m not really sure that a bank in Loughborough, a cemetery chapel and a coffee house in Ongar and a solitary house in Sydenham really hold this to be true.)
Clip from The Nottingham Journal’s notice of Watson Fothergill’s death, 7 March 1928. Source: British Newspaper Archive.
There are also a lot of photographs that originate from Nottingham’s council archive, many now online at Picture Nottingham, that are labeled as being buildings by Watson Fothergill. A great many of them are genuine Fothergill’s and there are some wonderful photos available, but some of them are part of “The Awkward Squad” or have even proved to be designed by different architects entirely. Several of these photos from the 1960s are credited to Mr FC Tighe.
F.C. Tighe, City Librarian (standing), with composer Eric Coates (who himself also has a connection to Fothergill!) 1953, Nottingham Evening Post. (source: Picture Nottingham)
Francis Charles Tighe was the Nottingham City Librarian (from 1953 until his death, aged 48 in 1964). In the early 1960s, Mr Tighe entered into correspondence with Brigadier George Fothergill Ellenberger, Fothergill’s oldest grandson (WW1 veteran and son of Eleanor Watson Fothergill Ellenberger and Georg Hieronymous Ellenberger – see blogs passim). Mr Tighe was preparing a lecture on Fothergill and Ellenberger sent him several family records including Fothergill’s diary. The microfilm copy held by the University of Nottingham archives still has the numbered tabs that the Brigadier added to correspond to a list of buildings “with which he may have been concerned whether as architect or renovator”.
The Brigadier typed out a ‘generous’ list of his grandfather’s works – 39 buildings, all but one of which are demonstrably by Fothergill. The problem comes from another fifty-odd projects that were handwritten onto the list. Ellenberger was not claiming them all for Fothergill but many of them have become firmly associated with the architect.*
These include, among others, several house in The Park Estate (Edale, which proves to be by Thomas Chambers Hine; Brightlands – now Adam House which was actually built for Samuel Bourne by Arthur George Marshall; and several houses on Hope Drive and Peveril Drive).
After the success of his lecture on Fothergill, Mr Tighe became a passionate Fothergill-Spotter and began to see them almost everywhere. Many of the photographs on Picture Nottingham that include the generic Watson Fothergill biography seem to originate from this period (indeed many are credited to Mr Tighe or are from what looks like the same batch marked c. 1964). This combination of attributions, and the way the keyword search on the site works, would seem to be responsible for the proliferation of these images to various social media platforms.
Indeed, I have found buildings by Fothergill’s assistant, L.G. Summers in Duke Street and the corner of Cedar Road that are cited as Fothergill’s on Picture Nottingham and other buildings that bear more resemblance to Summers’ later work.
As for the ones I have been sent recently – I think that the Lenton Boulevard houses (pictured above) are likely by Brewill & Baily. (See the latest Pevsner Guide To The Buildings of England: Nottinghamshire, p. 503) The Nottingham-based partnership of Arthur William Brewill (d.1923) and Basil Edgar Baily (1869-1942) were working in Nottingham during a similar period to Watson Fothergill, and there are bound to be some similarities in the material they used and their overall architectural influences. Other houses on Lenton Boulevard were photographed for Mr Tighe and to me, these feel like they are among some of his more wild guesses.
115 Lenton Boulevard, attributed to Fothergill but I’m very doubtful about this one. Photo: Google Street View. BUT IS IT A FOTHERGILL?
Number 115 Lenton Boulevard retains its attribution to Fothergill even in the latest Pevsner Guide. If anyone has any more information on any of these buildings, the pedant in me would like to straighten out the records!
Former Leenside Police Station, Canal Street. Photo: Lucy Brouwer NOT A FOTHERGILL!
Another Fothergill attribution that persists (due to how often photos of it are posted online) is the former Leenside Police Station on Canal Street. Despite red bricks and a turret, this is not listed in Darren Turner’s Catalogue at all. It was actually built by the City Engineer’s Department in 1901-2.
The Trent Bridge Inn. Photo: Wikimedia NOT A FOTHERGILL
The Trent Bridge Inn, another building whose shape might suggest some connection to Fothergill is in fact another ringer, having been built by William Bright (1888-90) with additions by Thomas Jenkins (1919). (Some info on The TBI and other Nottingham buildings that have become Wetherspoons pubs via Nottingham Civic Society.)
Building at corner of Wilford Crescent East. Photo: Chris Pyke-Hendry. Some features might point to L.G Summers but does anyone have any more clues? IS IT A FOTHERGILL???
The building near Meadows Library (above) photos of which were sent to me recently remains a mystery. To me it has some 1890s characteristics that might point in the direction of L.G. Summers, but as we have seen, a lot of building took place in the city around this time and there’s no evidence to substantiate who the architect might have been (not so far anyway).
Hardwick Road, photo: Lucy Iliffe
The actual Fothergill among the photos at the top of this blog (also above) is at the corner of Hardwick Road and Hartington Road, in Sherwood. Apparently some renovation is currently taking place. Built in 1890 as a villa on what was then called Cavendish Hill, for Mr Thomas Gallimore – who worked for Smith & Co Bank at the Long Eaton branch (itself designed by Fothergill). Gallimore also seems to have been a friend of L.G. Summers (Summers was present at Gallimore’s funeral in 1935). So even when we say something is a Fothergill, it shouldn’t discount the work of his chief assistant! You can see from the patterning of the bricks, the shape of the features like the windows and the chimney that this house resembles other known Fothergill’s more closely than any of Mr Tighe’s hopefuls that I’ve mentioned here.
I think what this really goes to show is that Nottingham is full of interesting buildings that are worth noticing and I hope it encourages you to go Fothergill-Spotting on urban walks! I’m still digging into the stories of the buildings that people have told me about and I’m always interested to hear from you if you live in a Watson Fothergill house or an interesting Victorian-era property that might be connected to the other architects of the period.
You can contact me HERE and sign up to the mailing list for the latest news on the return of the Watson Fothergill Walk in summer 2021.
*For more on this story, see the chapter “The Awkward Squad” in Fothergill: A Catalogue of the Works of Watson Fothergill, Architect by Darren Turner. Available from Five Leaves Books.
My talk Watson Fothergill: Nottingham’s Most Flamboyant Architect for Bromley House Library in January sold out and was the most popular Zoom talk they’ve had so far! So we’ve decided to put on a repeat performance for Library Members ONLY on 20 February 2021 at 11am.
I highly recommend becoming a member if you live in Nottingham or even if you’re a little further afield, it’s a wonderful haven in the middle of the city with a great community of people.
Photo: Lamar Francois.
The last Watson Fothergill Virtual Walk was popular beyond my wildest expectations – it very nearly sold out! If you bought a ticket, you should have received an email with a link to a video which will allow you to catch up or watch again. I’m hoping that future Zoom events will also have this facility.
Meanwhile, I’m looking at doing more Zoom talks for the public, so sign up to the mailing list to get news of dates as soon as they are announced.
Explore the highlights of the Watson Fothergill Walk with an illustrated talk on Zoom. Look at the beautiful details of some of Nottingham’s most flamboyant buildings and learn more about the architect who designed them. The next date for the Zoom “Virtual” walk is Thursday 4 February 2021 at 7 pm.
Over the last few years it has been my great pleasure to become a member of Nottingham’s hidden gem, Bromley House Library. Currently, the Library has been forced to close due to the “current situation” so their programme of local history talks has been moved online.
