Watson Fothergill in Nottingham

Demolished Fothergill Buildings: 7 Mapperley Road

The earliest house that architect Watson Fothergill (born Fothergill Watson, 1841) is known to have built is the dwelling he designed for himself and his family, which stood at 7 Mapperley Road, Nottingham.

Fothergill noted in his diary in 1870: “This Autumn 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.” Edwin Patchitt (1807-1888) was a solicitor and also a member of the Notts County Cricket team; he was Mayor of Nottingham for two terms between 1858 and 1860 and was the Secretary to the Enclosure Commissioners. He owned a triangle of land between Woodborough Road, Mansfield Road, Redcliffe Road and Elm Bank. Costing Fothergill £375, the land comprised 1,250 sq. yds and had a frontage of 105ft to Mapperley Road.

Site of Mr Fothergill’s house, digital sketch from plans for extension held in Nottinghamshire Archives.

The first brick was laid on 3rd March 1871, and the Fothergill Family, which at this time comprised Fothergill, his wife Anne and their daughters Marion, Annie Forbes, and Edith Mary, moved from the house they had been renting on Hampden Street on 26th March 1872, “though the workmen were not yet out of it.”

Digital sketch of photo of 7 Mapperley Road based on photo Bedford Lemere photo held by Historic England archives.

No drawings are known to survive of the original plan for the house, and there are few photos. I asked Nottingham-based architect and historic building consultant Peter Rogan to help me imagine what the house would have been like…

The house reflected High Victorian style with its asymmetry, individualism and accentuated features: brick with terracotta and stone details, prominent tall chimneys, and a four storey tower with decorative brickwork and a steep pitch roof. The house had an eclectic mix of window types: some sashes with stone lintels, bays and some with tracery. An entrance porch on the south-western side had slender decorative columns, above it an archway with a stone tympanum pieced by a window in the form of an eight-pointed star. On the side facing the road: trefoil decorations, circular windows and possibly a date stone. The gables made for broken rooflines creating a picturesque effect, capturing the light and shade that Fothergill found so alluring about the Gothic style.

South-west front of the house on Mapperley Road, from Picture Nottingham

In June 1872, Fothergill’s fourth child, Eleanor, was born: his three subsequent children, Samuel Fothergill 1874, Harold Hage 1877 and Clarice 1879, were also born here.

“The snuggest of houses! That is what we aimed at. Comfort, not great cold rooms, but gems of art sparkling round, an inviting home.”

Fothergill Family Record 1892.

Fothergill described the various features of the interior – sculptures, stag’s heads, green wallpaper in the style of Pugin, velvet curtains and tablecloths, and “modern” paintings on the walls. A brown wooden ceiling with gold details and floral decorations inscribed with a motto: “He that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.” (1 Corinthians 9:25) A portrait of Dr John Fothergill, his Quaker ancestor looked down on them from over the archway, and this was just the hall…

The rooms were adorned with brown silk and blue velvet, green walls and carpet, carved woodwork and decorated ceilings, but “everything is but a ground on which to display the pictures and the china” Among Fothergill’s collection of art works:  a water colour interior of Salisbury Cathedral by JMW Turner and a St Cecilia by George Romney. (Links are guesses at the possible pictures, Fothergill is mentioned in catalogues of various exhibitions as he lent out the paintings, but I’ve got more research to do here!)

Around 1899 Fothergill added electric light and more bay windows to the house to provide light for displaying his collections of porcelain and Venetian glass.

“Indeed there is no doubt that the mediaeval style, call it old English if you will, in which both house and furniture are designed, does particularly lend itself to a home-like effect. It lacks but age, with a few ancestral traditions attached to it, to render it dear to us – no it cannot be more dear.”

Fothergill Family Record 1892.

In 1901, Fothergill purchased the adjacent land extending down to Chestnut Grove, from the lace merchant Thomas Birkin, it cost just over £1000. This became an ornamental garden and a tennis court.

When Fothergill died aged 87 in 1928, the house was sold and his art collection and the furniture was put up for auction, presumably so proceeds could be split between his five daughters, both his sons having failed to outlive him.

Nottingham Journal, 14 July 1928, announcement of the auction of the contents of 7 Mapperley Road. British Newspaper Archive.

In the 1940s and 1950s, it appears that Councillor (later Lord Mayor) John Edwin Mitchell, lived at no. 7, then known as Park House (but I’m not 100% sure, as the numbering of the street has been altered).

Eventually the house was turned into flats, but it was demolished in 1968 – the value of the land too tempting to prevent developers from building many more dwellings on the site.

Circa 1968, when the house was about to be demolished. Picture Nottingham.

The present houses on the site were developed in the 1970s. They’re considerably less spectacular, but the development is at least called Fothergill Court!

Fothergill Court, Mapperley Road. Photo: Lucy Brouwer

The site of Fothergill’s house and more of his buildings in Mapperley Park, Sherwood Rise and Carrington will feature in my new walk, The Carrington Crawl. Dates will be announced as soon as the global situation allows… Meanwhile you can buy gift vouchers for yourself or friends and redeem them against future Watson Fothergill Walks with tour guide Lucy Brouwer.

Events, Watson Fothergill in Nottingham

Demolished Fothergill Buildings: The Black Boy Hotel

One of the best known building associated with Watson Fothergill in Nottingham is one that is no longer standing, The Black Boy Hotel on Long Row, which was demolished in 1970. As a few folks on the Watson Fothergill Walk have asked for pictures, I thought I’d collect together some images and thoughts on the building here.

Fothergill worked on The Black Boy Hotel throughout his career, beginning with buildings in the yard to the rear in 1869, while he was still in the employ of Issac Gilbert. The land on which the hotel was built belonged to the Brunts’ Charity. Fothergill’s association with the Black Boy would last until his retirement as the charity’s surveyor in 1910. In 1874 Fothergill worked on a carriage house or stock room, again in the yard.

The Black Boy Hotel before the central tower was built in the 1890s. Nottingham Post.

In 1878 he rebuilt part of the premises on the eastern side of the yard (Jessops shop), these were in turn demolished in 1897 when the hotel was reconstructed and Fothergill built a large department store for Jessops on King Street. In 1886 there was a more major rebuilding of the Long Row frontage and shops, as the top part of the old building had become uninhabitable. Fothergill opted to rebuild rather than restore the 200 year old building, planning 5 floors.

In 1892 he rebuilt the back wing of this part of the hotel adding a bar, a luggage room, a smoking room, a billiard room and 13 more bedrooms. The first major project to witness the reversal of Fothergill’s name to Watson Fothergill was an additional story on the stable block in 1893.

Plans for the extension and Tower circa 1898-9. More pictures via Nottstalgia Forum.

Finally, the last major addition to the bulding was in 1897 when balconies and bay windows as well as the tower were added. (See Darren Turner, Fothergill: A Catalogue of the Works of Watson Fothergill, Architect for more details.)

Advert for the Black Boy Hotel circa 1950s.
Model of the Black Boy Hotel from Richard Upton’s exhibition, The Black Boy Hotel: Gone But Not Forgotten, at the Nottingham Industrial Museum. (Photo: Lucy Brouwer).
Back view of the model, showing many additions and alterations. (Photo: Lucy Brouwer.)

Find out more about The Black Boy Hotel and the buildings of Watson Fothergill that are still standing in Nottingham on The Watson Fothergill Walk, tickets available for 12 June, 6pm and 30 June, 1pm.