Nottingham Architects, Research

Nottingham Architects: Gilbert Smith Doughty

Here’s another architect who was active around the same time as Watson Fothergill in Nottingham.

Gilbert Smith Doughty (1861-1909) came to my attention when I noticed that Fothergill was not the only architect to have his name carved on his buildings. Opposite Fothergill’s Nottingham and Notts Bank on Thurland Street you will find The Thurland Hall pub, and if the hanging basket is not too full you can find the name of the architect prominently displayed. There had been a pub here on the site of the Thurland Hall (home of The Earls of Clare) since the 1830s, but when the railway came through from the Victoria Station, the site was purchased and cleared.

Gilbert S. Doughty’s name on The Thurland Hall Pub, Pelham Street, Nottingham. Photo: Lucy Brouwer

Perhaps this “signature” was a little nod to Fothergill’s manner of claiming his work, or perhaps The Thurland Hall was a building of which Doughty was particularly fond. Indeed, the design had featured in The Building News and it was one of the first pubs outside London to be built by Levy & Franks, one of the very first pub chains in the country, who had pioneered the introduction of catering to public houses. They bought the site and rebuilt the pub between 1898-1900. Doughty had his office close to the original pub, at 17 Pelham Street.

The Thurland Hall from The Building News, 1902 (a print currently on sale on eBay)

Born in Lenton in 1861 to Edwin Doughty, a Lace manufacturer and his wife Annie Smith, Gilbert was the second of four children. He studied at Nottingham School of Art, and as early as age 19 he lists his profession as “architect” (in the 1881 Census when the family was living at Cavendish House, Cavendish Hill, Sherwood.) In 1880 and 1883 he won Queen’s Prizes for his designs and by 1884 the trade directories find him in an office at Tavistock Chambers on Beastmarket Hill. From 1887 he was a lieutenant in the Robin Hood Rifles, by then he had moved his office to 14 Fletcher Gate and continued to live with his father and family in Foxhall Lodge, a house he designed for them at the junction of Foxhall Road and Gregory Boulevard, opposite what was then The Forest Racecourse. (The building is currently Foxhall Business Centre).

Lieut. Gilbert S. Doughty eventually became a captain in the Robin Hood Rifles. This is an enlargement of a photo taken circa 1892 reprinted in Nottingham Evening Post, 1 June 1946. British Newspaper Archive.

The first major project (apart from houses) that there is evidence Doughty worked on was The Borough Club, on Queen’s Street. The building was demolished in the 1960s, but at the time of its design in 1893, it was newsworthy. Doughty took over the project from the Matlock architect George Edward Statham (who had worked on Smedley’s Hydro) Statham died suddenly of Scarlet Fever aged 39.

The Borough Club, next to Watson Fothergill’s building for Jessops. Photo: Flickr

Other work includes additions to CW Judge’s bakery at 59, Mansfield Road (work occasionally mistaken for that of Fothergill). In 1899 Doughty added a refreshment room (for a long time the building housed Encounters restaurant).

Rear view of CW Judge, Mansfield Road. Photo: Alan Murray Rust

The Northern Renaissance style of The Borough Club survives in some of Doughty’s other city centre work including 5-9 Bridlesmith Gate (1895) Built as a showroom for furniture shop Smart & Brown, the upper floors are now occupied by Waterstones.

The former Smart & Brown furniture store, now Fatface and Waterstones, Bridlesmith Gate, Nottingham. Photo: Lucy Brouwer

In a pinch, the central in the decoration of the Smart & Brown storefront might be Gilbert Smith Doughty! Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Smart & Brown circa 1926. Picture Nottingham

There are also two blocks of Flemish-inspired shops on Derby Road, but perhaps the most well known is the long gable range of City Buildings, Carrington Street (1896-7), with its prominent clock tower, a building known to many as the former Redmayne and Todd sports shop.

City Buildings, Carrington Street, recently renovated. Photo

Doughty lived at several addresses during his time in Nottingham, often buildings he had worked on, or close to them. In the 1901 census he and his wife May Edgcombe Rendle can be found as guests at the Portland Temperance Hotel on Carrington Street, opposite City Buildings (Incidentally, in the same census a former Fothergill assistant, architect John Rigby Poyser can be found in the Gresham Hotel, just the other side of the Carrington Street Bridge. More on these hotels in Alan Bates’ article for Nottingham Civic Society).

In 1902, Doughty lists his address as Greetwell, a house on the newly developed Manor Park estate in Ruddington (this land had been in the hands of the American industrialist Philo Laos Mills, for whom Doughty had worked on warehouses in the Lace Market, The Mills Building Plumtre Street, 39 Stoney Street and 47 Stoney Street.) Doughty’s contribution, Greetwell is still there although the house name does not survive.

Greetwell, Manor Park, Ruddington. Academy Architecture 1901, Source: Internet Archive
The Mills Building, Plumtre Street, Nottingham. Photo.

Doughty’s final Nottingham address in 1908 was a house he had built in 1905 on Private Road, Sherwood. Although the trade directories have yet another address for his office, in Prudential Buildings in the 1910 edition, by then Doughty and his wife had already left town.

How they came to be living in Prebend Mansions, Chiswick is not known, although this would have been close to his wife’s family in Brentford. This is the last known address of Gilbert Smith Doughty – he died suddenly in December 1909 in rather unfortunate circumstances.

After attempting to give a gift of a pair of gloves to a barmaid in The Roebuck pub on Chiswick High Road, Doughty was refused a drink of gin and angostura by the landlady and left the worse for drink. He was taken home and put to bed by the porter, but in the course of events hit his head on a mantlepiece (oh what irony as a design for a mantlepiece was one of his earliest achievements, gaining plaudits in 1879 while at Art School).

His wife found him dead and later at the inquest she noted that he was a heavy drinker and that the previous year he had “been sent away to a home for a time in consequence of his drinking habits”. In his article for the Civic Society, Alan Bates speculates that alcoholism might be the cause of Doughty’s somewhat patchy career, perhaps it was the reason for resigning his commission in the Robin Hoods in 1896, perhaps even the reason for the Doughty’s departure from Nottingham…?

You can read more about Gilbert Smith Doughty via The Nottingham Civic Society, where the venerable Ken Brand’s article is available in their archive. More work has been done by Alan Bates to fill in the gaps, a PDF featuring his article is available here.

Research, TC Hine

Traces of TC Hine at Nottingham Castle

During my visit to the newly reopened Nottingham Castle I spotted a few clues that point to the architect who originally transformed the ruined Ducal Palace into the first municipal art gallery outside London.

But does anything remain of “The Midland Counties Art Museum at Nottingham”?

Nottingham’s not really a castle.. it’s a Renaissance Ducal Palace you know! Photo: Lucy Brouwer

Nottingham Castle’s new Rebellion Gallery does a dynamic job of telling the story of how Nottingham Castle as we know it has survived a turbulent history – from the demolition of the Norman fortress by Oliver Cromwell after the Civil War to the damage caused by protesters against the 1831 Reform Bill, when the Riot Act was read and the Duke of Newcastle’s Palace was torched – but what happened next?

Thomas Chambers Hine, prominent architect of Victorian Nottingham and the 5th Duke of Newcastle’s Surveyor of Estates, took it upon himself (along with his son George Thomas Hine) to transform the gutted shell of the building into a Public Museum and Gallery of Art and Science. All the woodwork – floors and staircases – had been destroyed in the fire so Hine added new stone staircases with cast-iron balustrades and the three floors of the palace were replaced with two, cutting through the old staterooms.

TC Hine’s staircase inside Nottingham Castle. Photo: Lucy Brouwer

The top lit picture gallery was modelled on the Grand Gallery of The Louvre.

Picture (by Hine?) of the Gallery space now on display at Nottingham Castle. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
The gallery as it is today, with the skylight still performing its function. Photo: Lucy Brouwer

The Midland Counties Art Museum At Nottingham was opened by Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (Later King Edward VII)and his wife, Princess Alexandra on 3rd July 1878 and the occasion was marked with a royal procession through The Park Estate.

Stained glass window (now part of the Visiting Exhibition Space – currently hosting ‘Hello, My Name Is Paul Smith’) commemorating the Royal Visit and the Castle’s Civil War associations. Photo: Lucy Brouwer

TC Hine had a fondness for local history and published a book to mark the occasion, it detailed each phase of the building’s history and was entitled: ‘Nottingham Its Castle, A Millitary Fortress, A Royal Palace, A Ducal Mansion, A Blackened Ruin, A Museum and Gallery of Art’. It was published in two editions, the first in 1876 and a second in 1879 with a supplement covering the Royal Visit.

TC Hine’s history of the Castle, now on display in the Castle! Photo: Lucy Brouwer

Thanks to Google Books you can browse the pages of the book and look at some of the illustrations. (A copy is also available at Bromley House Library). In the book, “a labour of love”, Hine recounts the history of the Castle through the reign of each successive English monarch, notes significant incidents in the history of Nottingham and even lays claim to be the person who found the spiral stairs leading to the cave known as Mortimer’s Hole. As he goes through a timeline of the years, he notes important events, population figures and makes note of the buildings being built in the town. The book is almost a scrapbook (which is how it is described in the exhibition) although it actually contains printed pictures that have been stuck into each copy rather than the plates being directly printed onto the pages.


Nottingham Castle as a ruin, 1876 from Nottingham, Its Castle…” by TC Hine. Source: Google Books.

The deaths of notable personages are recorded and Hine describes buildings including the Nottingham Exchange, “standing as it does on the finest site in all England”, expressing the opinion that the building looked more like a “large retail establishment” than a public building fit to host the “Midland Counties Art Exhibition in connection with the South Kensington Museum”. He also describes the colonnades which distinguish Nottingham’s Market Place, even suggesting that they be developed as a feature, like the covered walkways of Bologna!

All in all, Hine’s book is a treasure trove of historical incidents and as he reaches years covered by his own lifetime, he notes the activities of other Nottingham architects as well as his own.

In summing up he compares the Castle, standing as it does upon a rock, to “the Acropolis at Athens or the Capitol of Rome”, and expresses the hope that ‘beauty and refinement “sweetness and light”‘ will arise from use of the Castle as a gallery and museum.

And so, we too must hope that in its latest incarnation, Nottingham Castle will continue to be such a beacon of “higher and nobler aspirations of the human mind.”

Closing paragraph of TC Hine’s ‘Nottingham, It’s Castle…” (source: Google Books)

To learn more about Thomas Chambers Hine and his buildings in Nottingham, join Lucy for her guided tour, The Hine Hike. The next date is 29 August 2021.

Tickets for this and all over events available on Eventbrite.

Research, Watson Fothergill in Nottingham

Four Lions at Nottingham Castle

Three Lions may belong on a shirt… but there are four lions at Nottingham Castle that I am particularly interested in…

The four stone lion sculptures found in the grounds of Nottingham Castle… Photos: Lucy Brouwer

As I mention on the Watson Fothergill Walk, these four stone lion sculptures originally adorned the tower of the Black Boy Hotel. On a visit to the newly reopened Nottingham Castle I found them in the grounds welcoming visitors. Each one has weathered to give it an individual character and their paws look almost as if they’re raising a toast!

Two of the lions at the top of step to Nottingham Castle. Photo: Lucy Brouwer

You can just see 2 of the lions on the corners of the tower, added to the hotel by Fothergill in 1897. Picture Nottingham.

Fothergill worked on the hotel over many years, coming back to rebuild and extend it on several occasions. On the tower, added in 1897, you can make out the lions, each a standard bearer with a shield – their poles are now long gone but you can see where they would have held them in their paws.

The Black Boy Hotel c.1939

The hotel was demolished in 1970 and replaced by Littlewoods (now Primark) on Long Row. The lions have been at the Castle ever since.

Read more about The Black Boy Hotel here, or join the Watson Fothergill Walk to learn all about the building, its architect and his work in Nottingham.

Tickets for forthcoming guided tours with tour guide Lucy Brouwer.

Nottingham Architects, Research

Nottingham Architects: Albert Nelson Bromley

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” 27 Newcastle Drive. Photo: Lucy Brouwer

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 Brouwer
Detail, 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 Brouwer
Griffin & Spalding (Debenhams on the day it closed). Photo: Lucy Brouwer
More 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.’

Obituary, Nottingham Evening Post 1934

A more in-depth look at A. Nelson Bromley’s work is available in the redoubtable Ken Brand’s article for Nottingham Civic Society.

Learn more about the architecture of 19th and early 20th Century Nottingham by booking a walk with Tour Guide Lucy Brouwer.

Lawrence G Summers, Watson Fothergill in Nottingham

Inside Watson Fothergill’s Office part two

Having studied the building from the outside, the chance to have a look around inside the Offices of Watson Fothergill on George Street, Nottingham was too good to resist. Many thanks to Sarah Julian of BBC Radio Nottingham for giving me the opportunity and to the Bragas for letting me take a few quick photos and letting me talk to them about the building.

Following on from my previous blog about getting through the door to find a quote from Geoffrey Chaucer, here we go up stairs to find the offices that have been turned into a two bedroom flat.

A screen grab of the listing for rent.

Fothergill built his office on George Street in 1894-5 after having to vacate his previous set up on Clinton Street when the railway came through. Typically, he had been prepared for the move and bought the site on George Street. He demolished the previous building in readiness for building his office. Aged 54 at the time, he was a confident and mature architect, his office serves as a three dimensional portfolio, and a lot of his later work around Nottingham seems to have followed on from this construction. It demonstrates his capabilites to his wealthy Nottingham clients and showed them the quality to which his creations aspired.

Up to the first floor and I noticed a familiar name on the door! (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)

I managed to grab a few photos, but as well as being rather overwhelmed I was also talking to Sarah for the radio piece, so forgive the rather snatched images! Up on the first floor, the first thing that caught my eye was the nameplates on the internal doors. The larger of the two rooms bore the initials L.G. Summers (Fothergill’s assistant, co-architect but never partner, in the practice Lawrence George Summers who will be familiar to readers of this blog.)

On the other door, a suitably Gothic name plate. (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)

The owners pointed out that the door with Fothergill’s name on lead to the smaller of the two rooms, they deduced that this was so that, in a building heated by coal fires, the boss would have the warmer office. It is also the office on the turret side of the building.

The fireplace in Fothergill’s office looks likely to be original. Nice Gothic ballflower detail. (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)
The niche above Fothergill’s fireplace has some Gothic touches surviving and the ceiling was panelled. We weren’t sure about all the wallpaper! (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)

There was a sense in the room that it would have made a cosy place to work, there was a connecting door through to Summers’ office and then the landing between them and the small waiting room that has been extended into a modern kitchen.

Fireplace and parquet flooring in what would have been the small waiting room area at the back. (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)
Summers’ office has been turned into the lounge of the flat. This is the larger room at the front on the first floor. The fireplace was off-centre and we couldn’t agree if this was an original feature. (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)
The view out the back window of the cottages in Brewitt’s yard. The one closest on the left has been incorporated into the building to make the kitchen and bathroom. (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)
The landing window contained some more coloured glass and what seems to be a quote from ‘The Life of Christ’ by Frederick Farrar (1874) perhaps a book that Fothergill, who had his religious moments, had read and taken to heart? (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)
The staircase up to the second floor. No one seemed to know what the statue represents; it was left by the previous owner. The niche suggests there has always been some art there but was it this? Anyone know who the chap with the bells is? (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)
The room in the turret, you can just see a panel in the ceiling which would have allowed you to look up into the workings and see the herringbone structure. It was currently full of insulation, but perhaps imagine Fothergill showing clients the quality of the woodwork inside his tower! (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)
The door to the other room upstairs, the owner had been staying there so I didn’t get a picture of inside! Presumably Fothergill’s apprentices and assistants worked upstairs. They had a fireplace in every room. (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)
In the little room that had been made into the toilet, was this tiny window. The owners removed a pulley system that seems to have been for hauling bags of coal up to the top floor in order to heat the offices. (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)

It was tricky to get more photos and talk at the same time so there’s just a flavour of what the building was like inside and we didn’t get time to look in the shop downstairs or further into the yard.

The conversion seems to be sympathetic – the building was used as a solicitors office prior to being sold (at least twice) so it had been disused for quite sometime. The quality of the workmanship on the repairs is first rate. It was mentioned that Fothergill had made a sturdy structure with a stone or concrete foundation – without which, the damage that was inflicted in 2015 might have destroyed the front of the building. Bonsers have written about the restoration they carried out on their website.

I will be running more Watson Fothergill guided walks into July and August – you can find dates and details via my Eventbrite page where you can book tickets. Private tours can be arranged – get in touch with Lucy via the contact page.

Events, Lace Market, TC Hine, Thomas Chambers Hine

The Hine Hike: Evening Walk

I’m running another chance to join me for The Hine Hike: The buildings of Thomas Chambers Hine on Wednesday 5th June 2019, starting at 6pm. Tickets here.

The Hine Hike 5 June 2019

Thomas Chambers Hine, 1813-1899, was possbly Nottingham’s most prolific architect of the Victorian Age. His work across the 19th Century ranges from overseeing the development of The Park Estate, to building the biggest lace warehouses in the Lace Market, and includes the conversion of Nottingham Castle to England’s first provincial art gallery outside London.

The Adams Building, Lace Market, Nottingham (photo: Lucy Brouwer).
The Birkin Building, Lace Market, Nottingham (photo: Lucy Brouwer).

Explore the buildings of Thomas Chambers Hine “the father of the Midlands Architects” and his impact on the built environment of Nottingham city centre. This evening walk will take in a overview of the Park Estate, progress via Hine’s home and office on Regent Street towards Nottingham Castle. The walk will continue across the city centre to investigate some of Thomas Chambers Hine’s lesser known buildings and finish up with some of his large scale projects in the Lace Market.

This is a walk of 3km (1.9 miles) approximately 2 hours. The walk starts at Nottingham Playhouse and finishes in the Lace Market.

Next Hine Hike is 5 June, 2019, 6pm Tickets here.

Lawrence G Summers

Lawrence George Summers in Sherwood Rise & Mapperley Park

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.

https://josephjoachim.com/ Wilson, Peck & Co were a musical instrument and record shop (and piano manufacturer) with branches in Sheffield and Nottingham.

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.)

I’ve announced some new dates for my city centre Watson Fothergill Walk in April and May – details and links to tickets here.

Lawrence G Summers

Lawrence George Summers’s Buildings in Sherwood, Carrington & New Basford.

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.

Lawrence G Summers

More about Lawrence George Summers.

Some detective work looking for the rather elusive “architect’s assistant”.

I’ve been using some online archives to see if there is anything else out there about Lawrence G. Summers and after some digging I think I’ve come up with a few clues.

Starting with Ancestry.com (which is available to use for free in Nottinghamshire Libraries and is an invaluable starting point if you enjoy a bit of basic historical sleuthing), I found Summers in the census and tried to make a few dates add up. The problem with online research is that often transcription of handwriting (the speedy pen of the census taker, the scratchy hand of the baptismal registrar) is full of errors. I eventually tracked Summers down in the 1861 census – at age 6, living with his parents, brother and sister at 80 Duke Street, New Basford. (Later in his career Summers will be responsible for several building projects in Duke Street, more on these in the next blog.)

By 1871, the Summers family address has become 83 Duke Street, 16 year old Lawrence is already noted as an “architects clerk” and he has gained another younger brother. I’ve not had much luck with the 1881 census and finding L.G. in 1891 was a little harder as his name has been transcribed as “Laurence”, but he turns up living with his younger brother Frederick and his family, still on Duke Street. L.G. is 35 by now and is still noted as an architects clerk. His brother (and his father, who lives next door) are both listed as “Lace Warpers”. In a trade listing from 1899 Summers seems at last to have moved out and he is listed as “Architect’s Assistant” living at 8 Corporation Oaks (while brother Fred is now of “Summers and Son” and is still at Duke Street).

Corporation Oaks. http://www.ng-spaces.org.uk/exhibition-2016/3-the-walks/

All this tallies with what Darren Turner has compiled in his book. But what of Summers the man? Who was his wife? And why does he show up as living alone as a single man aged 56 in the Gresham Hotel on Carrington Street in the 1911 census? (This one was a challenge as the whole page has been very poorly transcribed with New Basford transposed to “New Brentford” and architect read as “servant”, making it look like Summers worked in the hotel.)

The Gresham Hotel next door to the Fothergill-designed bank on Carrington Street. https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/history/see-old-photos-carrington-street-1102622

To find out about a life, you often have to read about a person’s death, and so it is with Summers, the most that was ever written about him was after his funeral. When Summers died in September 1940, his death made the front pages of the local papers. The notices list the mourners (articles can be found on The British Newspaper Archive – also free to use inside Nottinghamshire Libraries) and from here I was able to narrow down the search. Summers’ wife is only ever refered to as “the widow” which seems to have been standard practice at the time. But luckily the familial relationships of the other people present were noted, so we can discover that Summers’ brother in law was a Mr Lewis Byng. More plugging away at Ancestry eventually stumps up the jackpot. Mrs Summers, nee Louise Martha Byng was married to Lawrence George Summers in 1927, when she was 56 and he was 73. This was a year after the death of her father, Joseph Tussaud Byng a banker with 12 children, and just a short time before the death of Watson Fothergill.

Lawrence and Louise appear again in the 1939 register now living together at 59 Edwards Lane. Lawrence died the following year, in November 1940 and Louise lived on until 1955, until the age of 84.

Edwards Lane crica 1920 Picture Nottingham

Looking at the Ancestry entries for the Byng family, one name stood out as it had also come up in searches of the Newspaper Archive with reference to the theatre… one of Louise Byng’s younger (half-) brothers was Douglas Coy Byng and as it turns out he was on the stage… in fact he was a celebrated Pantomime Dame, singer, cabaret star and female impersonator famed for his double entrendres! Here he is talking about the panto dame tradition in 1982:

And here is a performance of a comic song!

Summers’ Brother in Law Douglas Byng had a long and illustrious show biz career, both he and L.G. Summers were at J.T. Byng’s funeral so perhaps they met?

Byng was instrumental in developing “glamour drag” and played upper class female comic characters.

Next time… more about L.G. Summers’ buildings in Nottingham. If you think you might be related to the Summers family who lived in New Basford it would be great to hear from you! The family turn up in a few family trees on Ancestry, so some cousins a few times removed might be out there…

Lawrence G Summers, Uncategorized

On the trail of Lawrence George Summers…

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.

From The Building News, Mar 20, 1874.

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”.

From The Building News, Dec 25, 1874

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.

More on Summers in the next blog…

Meanwhile I treated myself to having the lithographs framed:

Somewhat wonky photos of the Nottingham-themed wall in my “office”.

*If this is your site, please get in touch!