I’m a member of Nottingham’s Women in Business networking group, Blue Stockings Society. Together we have put together a new event on Thursday 28 July starting at 7 pm. It will comprise a short guided walk that takes an entertaining and informative look at the architecture and history of The Lace Market – with buildings by architects Watson Fothergill and Thomas Chambers Hine, as well as the modern urban landscaping that makes the area unique.
After the walk, there will be a networking session at The Angel Microbrewery, inside the historically interesting Old Angel Pub on Stoney Street in the heart of the quarter. Tickets are available here and open to both members of Blue Stockings and non-members who are interested in meeting other local women in business. The event is for women only. Tickets are available from both Watson Fothergill Walk and Blue Stockings Society, but numbers for the walk are limited so please book in advance.
Tickets for all forthcoming guided walks – The Watson Fothergill Walk and The Hine Hike – are available here on Eventbrite. If you’re interested in a guided architecture walk for your group, then send Lucy a message here.
Watson Fothergill Walk, Sunday 3 July, 10 am The original Nottingham city centre walk exploring the life and work of Victorian architect Watson Fothergill, also known as Fothergill Watson.
I was up in Mapperley giving my talk on Watson Fothergill and his architecture to a large gathering of U3A members, on the way back into town I took the opportunity to go inside a Fothergill building I have been meaning to visit for ages… Woodborough Road Baptist Church.
View from Woodborough Road. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Woodborough Road Baptist Church is dated 1894 and opened in February 1895.
There had been a temporary iron chapel on the site since about 1875 and money was raised to commission a building to house the increasing number of worshipers.
On 20th June 1894 the memorial stones were laid, the first by Miss Bayley. Inside was a bottle containing “a copy of each of the Nottingham daily papers, copies of Baptist publications, a statement of the present number of members, scholars and teachers, the names of the contractors and the name of the architect.”
“The builders were Messrs Fish and Co with Mr Kennedy as Clerk of the Works, the architect was Mr W Fothergill of Clinton Street.”
Schools entrance and memorial stone laid by Miss Bayley. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
The old classrooms were preserved and the new chapel was to be 109ft long and 49ft wide. Built in red brick with Derbyshire stone facings with a clock tower planned to be 90ft tall it would “greatly improve the appearance of the neighbourhood”
The Rev. G. Howard James (who was president of the Nottingham Sunday School Movement) gave a toast at the luncheon to celebrate the commencement of works, hoping that “…in coming years they would find it more and more a spiritual success, and a joy to Nottingham people of many succeeding generations.”
View from Alfred Street Central. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
On 5th February 1895, the opening service was conducted by Rev. Dr R Glover of Bristol. The total cost of work had been £5,000 (exceeding the original estimate of £4,500). Mr W. Fothergill, now of George Street had provided plans for “a commanding structure. and an undoubted ornament to the town.”
With a “nave of 7 bays, aisles of slightly unequal width, iron columns, a semi-circular arcade and clerestories. At one end a many sided polygon and at the other a semi-octagon, chorister and platform. There was room for 284 in the gallery and 930 seated downstairs. The interior was “rather unconventional in treatment, attractive, well-lighted and comfortably heated”. The tower was by now 100ft and octagonal in shape with red brick, blue brick and Derbyshire stone dressing and rock-faced plinth with terracotta bands. A lobby connected the two entrances and there were five new classrooms to compliments the three old ones.
Interior of Woodborough Road Baptist Church, now Pakistani Centre. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
The building is now home to the Pakistani Centre which provides an Older Persons Day Car Service, a community restaurant and space for prayer.
Iron Columns, arches, Clerestory and gallery. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
The school rooms below are home to Switch Up and the Nottingham School of Boxing who provide support for local young people. It seems these endeavours are not so different from the building’s original purpose – non-conformist worship and “the elevation of their fellow men”.
Veggie curry lunch! Photo: Lucy Brouwer
It was lunchtime when I visited so I ordered the vegetarian lunch and stayed for a look around. The community restaurant serves a lunch for £5-£6 curry, rice and chapati every weekday between 12 noon and 2 pm. Filling!
The building is grade II listed and up-close it has many distinctive features that are recognisable form other Fothergill buildings of the period. The leaded glass, the polychrome brickwork and stone dressings in particular stand out.
The cast-iron columns, arches, clerestory and vault. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Rear view of Woodborough Road Baptist Church. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Date stone over the entrance. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Woodborough Road view. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
According to Darren Turner’s Fothergill Catalogue, the church was one of the buildings for which Fothergill commissioned photographs from Bedford Lemere & Co, the architectural photographers. The pictures are now lost but are recorded in the daybook for 1897. I have been unable to find any photographs of the interior when it was in use as a church. If anyone has any leads or memories of the building then please contact me.
Learn more about Watson Fothergill, an architect who had a major impact on the look of Victorian Nottingham, by joining my guided tour, The Watson Fothergill Walk. The next date is 8 May, 2022 starting at 10 am, tickets here.
As well as the other walks in May and June, tickets are now available for another special date with added Afternoon Tea or Cream Tea at Debbie Bryan in the Lace Market on 8 May starting at 10am.
Tickets are available here for a Watson Fothergill Walk, plus either full Afternoon Tea or Cream Tea at Debbie Bryan’s wonderful shop and tearoom in the Lace Market. The Walk starts at 10 am on Sunday 8 May and concludes at the shop around 12noon in time for tea, cakes, scones and all the usual Debbie Bryan treats (available in Vegan, Vegetarian, Gluten-Free or Regular options).
April is getting booked up with several private walks, talks to local groups and new ventures with primary school pupils and students looking at history and tour guiding. Thanks everyone for spreading the word!
The Carrington Crawl for Ukraine sold out – donations clocked up at over £390 – huge thanks to everyone who donated or enquired about the DEC Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal. You can still donate here.
There are some tickets available for the Debbie Bryan Watson Fothergill Walk on 8 May, start 10am, now with the option of Afternoon Tea or Cream Tea after the walk, tickets here.
The first public walk of the year will be a collaboration with Debbie Bryan’s Lace Market Tea Room. Tickets include afternoon tea, with many dietary options available including Traditional, Vegan, Vegetarian and gluten-free.
The walk starts at 10 am on 10 April 2022, arriving at Debbie Bryan on St Mary’s Gate at 12 noon.
Tickets are £38 each – includes a two-hour walk followed by a full afternoon tea.
Tickets are now available for a Cream Tea option priced £22 each with the same array of dietary options.
“Lucy is a super guide and we had a great time, also learned a lot! Not least to keep looking up!”
Prompted by a question about this building on the Nottingham Hidden History Facebook page…
This building on the corner of Bridlesmith Gate and Victoria Street was a bit of a mystery… Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Ever since I noticed the details in the frieze above the first floor on this building I’d been wondering what the symbols, which on close inspection are an N and C overlapping and a club like you’d find in a deck of cards, could signify.
The frieze in more detail. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
When researching my Hine Hike tour, looking at the buildings of Thomas Chambers Hine, an architect whose work in Nottingham was prolific between the 1850s and 1870s, slightly predating that of Watson Fothergill, I found out more.
Along with the frieze, there are also monogrammed iron grills on the Bottle Lane side of the building.
More hidden letters in the grills on Bottle Lane. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
So what does it all mean? This rather elegant building was originally built as The Nottinghamshire County Club, set back from the road to allow the members to alight from their carriages. It was designed by Thomas Chambers Hine and his Son, George Thomas Hine who he had recently taken into partnership. The club opened in 1869.
Established in 1864, The Nottinghamshire County Club was a gentleman’s club containing billard, reading, card and coffee rooms. It also had bedrooms and “all the conveniences of a first-rate club”; there were around 200 members. Members paid a subscription and there was a reduced rate for gentlemen residing within ten miles. It was a place for meetings, a place to receive messages (for example, adverts were placed in the newspaper for items for sale and the club was used as the address to apply to). There were stewards and a secretary.
Originally there was a tourelle on this corner but it’s possible it was destroyed by the 1929 fire. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Originally the building had a tourelle on the corner but this has been removed. A severe fire in 1929 destroyed most of the club’s early records and the name doesn’t make it an easy thing to search for in a city that not only has a Notts County football team, but also NCC (Notts County Cricket) and NCC (Notts County Council)! These are unrelated to these premises.
In 1954 it was sold to the Leicester (later Alliance and Leicester) Building Society and the Club leased back all but the ground floor. Access to the first and second floors was by lift via a new entrance on Bottle Lane.
The building is featured on my Hine Hike walk looking at the life and work of Thomas Chambers Hine. I hope to run this tour again in the summer, so sign up for the mailing list for news of dates. The Hine Hike is also available as an illustrated talk, in person or via Zoom so contact me for more details to set up a session for your group.
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).
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
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.
Watson Fothergill Virtual Walk: Fothergill’s Buildings in Mansfield, 8 February 2022, 7 pm. Tickets £5 +booking fee
Thanks to everyone who has taken part in a Watson Fothergill Walk this year, also to all those who have sent messages about Fothergill’s buildings – I’ve written up reports of some visits on my blog, with more to come soon! If you live in a Fothergill or have memories of working in one of the buildings, do email me!
The architect Watson Fothergill, or as he was known until 1892, Fothergill Watson, was born in 1841 in Mansfield, Notts. He had many connections in his home town and some of his buildings can still be found there.
I have been working on an introduction to these buildings in the form of a “Virtual Walk”, a new illustrated Zoom talk that will take place on 8 February 2022 at 7 pm, tickets £5 (plus booking fee). Join me to learn more about the buildings that remain and those that have been lost.
If you missed out on the original Watson Fothergill Virtual Walk, there will be another chance to join me for the Zoom version of my walking tour on 20 January 2022 at 7 pm. If you can’t attend these events “live” then a recording will be made available to ticket holders afterwards.
Meanwhile… in-person walks will be back in Spring 2022. If you’d like to cover the cost of a walk, or to purchase tickets as a gift, vouchers are delivered by email.
Meanwhile if you haven’t already, make sure your email is on the mailing list to receive all the latest news and walk dates as soon as they’re finalised!
Sometimes I’m lucky enough to be invited to explore Fothergill buildings. The latest of these was The Red House, on Cator Lane, Chilwell.
From the road, The Red House has a distinctive chimney that stands out from the surrounding buildings… Photo: Lucy Brouwer
The Red House is listed in the Fothergill Catalogue as a “Minor Work”, as it was not originally built by the architect. However, the additions he made to the property are quite extensive.
With its very tall chimney and red bricks, The Red House stands out amid the 1930s suburban semis that make up the rest of the street. Indeed, for a long time the original house (then called Hill House) was the only building on this part of Cator Lane, it is visible on maps from around 1850 – it may have been built even earlier, around 1840 from the style of the windows in the original parts of the house.
The Red House from the back, which is now the front.. the porch is a modern addition. Photo: Lucy BrouwerThe “front” of The Red House, Fothergill’s extension includes the porch and landing above, the large bays over two floors, bay windows added to the original rooms and possibly the attic rooms. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
The plans for Fothergill’s alterations were submitted in October 1895, approved in November and presumably carried out shortly after. The extension is shown on the 1900 OS map of the area. After the work, the house is called “The Red House” on maps and it is apparently the only substantial dwelling on Cator Lane until about 1930. I’ve found advertisements in newspapers from 1933 offering houses for sale (for £550 per house) on The Red House Estate on Cator Lane, most of the houses nearby look as if they were built around this date.
1933 advert in The Long Eaton Advertiser for The Red House Estate
Ian, the present owner of The Red House, gave me a tour and told me what he knows about the history of the building.
The house had been a parsonage and the client for the extension work was Frederic Chatfield Smith (1824-1905) of Bramcote Hall, at one time an MP for the area and the head of Smiths Bank in Nottingham. However, Smith did not live in the house.
There is a plaque commemorating Smith in the nearby Christ Church in Chilwell, he endowed the church but this wasn’t until 1903. He was known for his charitable work as his obituary in Nottingham Evening Post, 22 April 1905 notes:
“He manifested a warm interest in religious and philanthropic work, being an ever-generous subscriber to charitable and other institutions. He was a patron of the living of Bramcote with Attenborough, and he exercised discriminating influence in church matters.”
So did Frederick Chatfield Smith extend the house to encourage a new vicar to move to Chilwell? It seems that after the improvements the house remained as a small farm, with a quantity of pasture land and some animals. Ian has an advertisement that describes the house when it was offered for auction in the 1920s.
Auction notice for the house from circa 1921-22. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
I’ve found that in 1864, the house had been lived in by the then late Joseph Morris – cited in a marriage announcement for his sixth daughter Pattie.
In 1889, the householder was The Rev. James Crabtree – so it was presumably still a parsonage at this point.
After the extension was added, I’ve found a few of the residents and some information:
Around 1898-1899 G.W. Baxter, his wife, son and daughters can be found at the house. Baxter and family rode with the Earl of Harrington’s hunt in 1898, and in April 1899 GW Baxter could be found selling a horse at the Black Boy Repository (behind the hotel?) in Nottingham. In November 1899, both he and his servants donated to the Shilling Fund.
Brigadier General Charles Tyrell Shipley CB (1863-1933) was another resident of the Red House. I’ve found a couple of photographs of him: here in uniform and here as a younger man, and something of his war record, he seems to have had an illustrious military career, commanding the 46th North Midlands Division and according to his obituary in the Nottingham Evening Post (13 Nov 1933) he lived at The Red House “before the war” (WW1).
Newspaper classified ads are another way of discovering who lived in a house. Between 1915-1918, the Barnett family various posted notices for the sale of a Great Dane puppy, an appeal to find their lost Airedale bitch, Jessie, and a “wanted ad” for a Daily Help or a good cook-general.
In both September 1919 and December 1921 the house was part of a selection of properties and land up for auction (in 1921 the tenant was cited as Mr W. Lucas). I believe the poster Ian showed me (pictured above) is from around this time.
23 Jan 1926, Nottingham Evening Post. (British Newspaper Archive). More Pigs For Sale from the Harrisons at The Red House.
Between 1923 and 1933 Kennedy William Harrison and his family were resident in the house – for several years running they annually offer for sale a litter of pigs (there was a pigsty outside the house, which is still recognisable among the outbuildings) as well as a litter of retriever puppies and “50 second season fowls in full lay” (Present owner Ian’s lockdown project was to install a small coop with hens!).
There are also reports of Mrs Harrison being involved in a motor bus accident in 1923 when a Barton Bros bus ran into a telegraph pole in Beeston. Despite being a “victim of the mishap” Mrs Harrison was “progressing satisfactorily” at the time of the report in the Beeston Gazette and Echo (6 October 1923). A company, Harrison and Hill Ltd, was formed in 1932, with Mr Harrison going into business with a certain Miss Gwendoline Hill in a firm of manufacturers and dealers of clothing and wearing apparel.
Between around 1933 and 1936, The Red House Estate was being developed on surrounding land off the newly created Brookland Drive. The builder Cecil C. Blythe advertises houses in local papers with tag lines including, “Have you visited The Red House Estate, Cator Lane? If not, why not?” the houses were “modern and labour saving” (Beeston Gazette and Echo, 4 Nov 1933). All these nuggets were found using the British Newspaper Archive.
Fothergill’s extension to The Red House. Photo: Lucy BrouwerFothergill’s extension protrudes from the square plan of the original house. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Ian was keen to point out that The Red House exhibits some characteristics that bring to mind the Arts & Crafts movement – Fothergill’s attention to detail, fondness for decorative elements and good quality materials suggest at least a knowledge of William Morris and his Red House – now a National Trust property in Bexleyheath, on the outskirts of London. But “The Red House” is a common name for properties that are this colour – Fothergill’s fondness for the distinctive Mapperley Bricks might just as well be the origin of the name.
Characteristic Fothergill additions – leaded windows, decorative brickwork, nogging and a hint of polychrome. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
The chimney towers above the rest of the house, note Fothergill’s use of English Garden Wall bond for the brickwork. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.
Inside the house, there are some quirks of design like the decorative coving in the Fothergill drawing room, and a door that has a frame at an angle to accommodate the staircase. Fothergill appears to have moved the stairs from what was the front of the house to the back (except this is now used as the front!). It was hard to photograph and it would be useful to have the plans – if anyone with knowledge of Chilwell history knows where they might be, then please let us know!
The hall, where the original exterior wall and door have been moved to create the extension. The arch shows where the exterior wall originally stood. The unusual plasterwork panelling in the hall (which also goes upstairs) seems to be part of the work done when Fothergill extended the house. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Tricky to see in a photo, but this door frame is angled so that it can fit behind the stairs…never seen one like it before! Photo: Lucy Brouwer
The chamfered corners in the living room are echoed in all the interiors that are part of Fothergill’s extension. Similar details exist in other houses he worked on. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Some details on the porch, which was originally the front door. A buttress, cut out patterns in the wood and brick nogging above, all features familiar from other Fothergill buildings in Nottingham. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Huge thanks to Ian Paul for inviting me to look at his house!
If you live in a Fothergill building, or if you have a house whose history you’d like to explore, then Lucy might be able to help with research – please fill in the form on the contact page to send a message. Tours will be back in 2022!
