Some great photos of Lucy in action during a wet but enjoyable Watson Fothergill Walk on 16 February. It was great to see people so keen to join in the first public tour of the year! Photos by theparkestate on Instagram (follow them for some great photos of houses by Fothergill, Hine and other Nottingham architectes in Nottingham’s Park Estate).
16 February 2020 Watson Fothergill Walk. Lucy guiding in the rain! Thanks to theparkestate for the photos.
I have set up a TripAdvisor page for the Watson Fothergill Walk. It would be great to reach a wider audience and introduce them to this most interesting of Nottingham architects! If you’ve enjoyed the walk, please leave a review – it would be a great help. You can also post photos if you have some.
I look forward to seeing some of you again on future walks… I have plans for more Hine Hikes and a Carrington Crawl to look at some of Fothergill’s domestic architecture… coming soon!
I’ve been busy reading, researching and thinking about new walks and talks for the new year. But I’m ready to get out walking again, so I’ve set up some dates for The Watson Fothergill Walk in February and March 2020.
The first walk, which will start at 10am outside Nottingham Tourism Centre and finish at Debbie Bryan on St Mary’s Gate, will take place on 16 February. Tickets are £12 each and include coffee or tea and cake at the end of the walk.
It is once again likely that I will be adding afternoon walks to these dates if there is sufficient demand, so if you prefer to start at 1pm, please get in touch to express an interest…
Previously, I began telling the story behind the building of The Bodega on Pelham Street. These days it’s a popular music venue and bar, but it’s been through several image changes over the years… I spoke to Alan Clifford on BBC Radio Nottingham about the building.
While it’s nothing to do with Watson Fothergill (as far as I know!) this building has opened up some interesting avenues of research and I’ve found myself scouring archives, reading about the social history of the English pub and obsessively asking people if they remember drinking there in the 1970s and ’80s…
Part one of this blog left off in 1904. The Bodega was listed as a Billiard Saloon, and seems to have departed from the Bodega Company’s Wine Bar model. The First World War hit the English licensed trade hard, with opening hours dramatically reduced, “treating’ (i.e. buying drinks for other people), giving credit and the long pull (serving more than the correct measure to attract custom) were all made illegal. (The minimum drinking age of 18 didn’t come in until 1923, and children could still buy alcohol from pubs to take home to their parents as long as it was in stoppered containers!) The war also pushed up the price of drink, and it stayed up, while the actual strength of drinks fell. For more on this and all things PUB, read The Local: A History of The English Pub by Paul Jennings. (By the time you read this I’ll have taken it back to the library...)
The 1915-16 Kelly’s Trade Directory of Nottingham lists Bodega Wine Co. Ltd. at 23 Pelham Street, trading as Bodega for the Bodega Wine and Spirit Merchants. Thomas S Poole, of 48 Harlaxton Drive is the manager. (Their phone number, Nottingham 1880, stayed the same into the 1940s.)
Robert Banks Lavery, the original owner of the Bodega Company, died in 1915 leaving his fortune of £13,2723 (approx. £ 15,049,738.89 in 2019) to various Catholic charities. The Bodega Company share price fluctuated after the war, but the business seemed to be steady around the country.
In March 1916, the Aberdeen Daily Journal reported that The Bodega Company had been admonished in the High Court by the makers of a certain beef drink, for passing off Oxo and “other meat preparations” when orders were placed for Bovril. The defendant denied the accusations but the injunction was passed and The Bodega Company paid costs.
1921 was a particularly bad year for the company’s share price, as the country recovered from the war.
In 1927, at the Nottingham Bodega, there was one of a spate of fires, leading to the Nottingham Evening Post headline: “Incendrism suspected!” Barrels of oil from the Nottingham Perfumery Co. caught fire in the passage. The branch is called The Bodega Hotel at this point, and a Mr Dominic is the employee who telephoned for the fire brigade, averting any serious damage.
In 1928, Slater’s Restaurants acquired Bodega. Slater’s were one of the largest catering companies in the world at this time. The million pound take over led to the company being known as Slaters and Bodega, bringing Bodega’s 30 outlets and 2 hotels into the company. Catering supplies had become integral to the operation. Bodega had previously been known for their outside catering, providing food and drink for race meetings, agricultural shows and the like. In 1931 there was a further takeover bid by Welsh firm RE Jones, but this failed.
One night in April 1931, the manager of the Nottingham Bodega, John Edward Marshall, was killed on Radford Road when a bus struck him after he alighted from a tramcar on his way home to Noel Street. A military man, he had seen action with the 10th Hussars. At least 11 members of staff from Bodega Wine And Spirit Company’s Saloon attended his funeral.
Plans in Nottinghamshire Archives show that improvements were made to the toilet facilities and the layout of the Bodega in 1933 and 1936. The ground floor now had a bar and a “cold counter”. Newspaper reports of a break-in by some young boys in 1940 refer to the Bodega simply as “a public house”.
In the 1950s, Billiards and Snooker were the main attractions of the Bodega in Nottingham, with several matches warranting newspaper reports on the games and their results.
In 1954, Slaters and Bodega were taken over by Charles Forte’s catering and hotel empire (to become Trust House Forte in later years). In 1956, JA Charles is installed in Pelham Street as the licensee.
Daily Herald, 23 December 1953. British Newspaper Archive.
Here the trail goes a little cold, as Bodega gets swallowed up into the Forte empire. But there are photographs showing what the outside of the Bodega looked like in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Bodega in 1962. You can just see the words ‘Manchester and Liverpool’ on the shield. from: Nottingham in the 1960s and 1970s by Douglas Whitworth.
By 1966 the Bodega in Nottingham was being run by Ind Coope Brewery from their Derby office. In 1967 they added the stairs to the front of the building and did some improvements to the toilets inside.
Sketch/trace of the proposed improvements in 1967, by architect G. Hakesly for Ind Coope. Nottinghamshire Archives.
Ind Coope were still running the pub in 1970 when they added an extension over both floors to the rear, containing the Ladies’ toilets upstairs and a store room downstairs.
Ind Coope were involved until at least 1983 (photos below). They had become part of Allied Breweries in 1961, merging with Ansells and Tetley Walker. Allied in turn merged with food and catering giant J. Lyons and Co. in 1978 to form Allied Lyons, then again in 1992 with Carlsberg to become Carlsberg-Tetley. I haven’t been able to find out (as yet) when Bodega left the Forte empire (as it doesn’t tend to be noted when companies are sold off).
The pub sign in 1983, harking back to the original idea of a Bodega as a wine cellar. Picture Nottingham.
Some people I’ve spoken to remember a bierkeller-feel to the pub in the 1980s. Licensing laws again have an effect on the way pubs are organised in 1987-1988, with the introduction of flexible drinking times.
Ansells, who are quoted in 1988 as the owners of the Bodega, ring the changes and refurbished the bar as Cairo’s Disco Bar… The Evening Post reported:
“ Three traditional city centre pubs are being transformed into upmarket bars for young trendsetters in a £860,000 refit by owners Ansell’s. By the end of August… Bodega will have become Cairo’s. Ansell’s plan to create a circuit of bars with style and sophistication for Nottingham’s young trendsetters – and hope they will also cut down on night-time city centre violence. … Cairo’s Disco bar, which opens around August 23, will spin the discs until 12,30am on the first floor with a bar down below. … Ansell’s regional director: “Nottingham has more class, more fashionable people with real style, than any other city in the East Midlands…”
New look for 3 city centre pubs. Evening Post 12 July 1988.
Cairo’s is remembered as being “very neon”… it also featured as a location in an episode of Central TV’s “Boon” in 1990.
By 1993 though, Ansells had refitted the bar once more, this time to become Irish-themed Rosie O’Brien’s Pumphouse, a chain with branches across the Midlands (there was another Nottingham branch in Carrington on Mansfield Road, in 2019 the pub is called Turners.)
If you’d like to hire me to conduct in-depth research and detective work into buildings, businesses, architecture or local history, please get in touch!
Earlier in the year, I was invited to talk to Alan Clifford on BBC Radio Nottingham about my walk The Hine Hike and the buildings of Thomas Chambers Hine. The programme recently got in touch with me to see if I’d like to talk to Alan on the radio again.
They asked if I knew anything about The Bodega on Pelham Street, as it is celebrating 20 years in its current incarnation as a live music venue.
As a detective, I’m even keener than Coleen Rooney, so I couldn’t resist delving into the archives to see what I could find. This building is NOT A FOTHERGILL nor is it related to his work at all as far as I know, but I’m really interested in developing the research side of my work. Here’s what I’ve found so far…
The Bodega, now at 16 Pelham Street, but previously listed as being No. 23 was built on the site of what was previously a pub called The Durham Ox.
The Durham Ox was the starting point for mail coaches to Lincoln and Newark. It was also in this pub that the Lacemakers and Printers Trade Unions would hold their weekly meetings in the early Victorian era. In 1855, the Inn made the transition to a minor music hall, hosting what were called ‘Free and Easies’, with customers supplying their own entertainment. The New Amateur Musical Society performed regularly at the Durham Ox, the Garrick Society staged dramatic reading there, and it was said to be the most popular of Nottingham’s music hall pubs. By 1900 it wasn’t considered to be quite fit to continue to be licensed. It was bought by The Bodega Company in 1901 and demolished.
They employed experienced London pub architect George Dennis Martin to rebuild the pub. The result was light and elegant, a long graceful archway with a hanging light. Projecting through a hipped roof is an exaggerated dormer with a swollen pediment on top bearing the date 1902.
Sketch/ tracing of GD Martin’s design for “Rebuilding of The Durham Ox”, taken from plans held by Nottinghamshire Archives.
The pub was still called The Durham Ox on the plans and was labelled as having a Bodega on the ground floor and a Club Room on the first floor. The Bar was on the right hand side, and the smaller arch at the front leads to a passageway.
The Bodega Company was started by Robert
Banks Lavery (b.1835-6), a Captain in the Lancashire Rifle Volunteer Corps, who
resigned his commission in 1861. Lavery & Co Bodega Spanish Wine Cellars
was set up as a Wine and Spirit Merchant with branches in Manchester, London
and Birmingham. In 1871 the company held wholesale and bottling vaults at St
Pancras and the retail business offered – “each wine clearly and
distinctly marked at its price per dock glass, bottle, dozen or quarter cask.
The taster pays the proportionate small price for his sample 3d to 1s 3d and is
therefore fully able to arrive at an opinion of quality.”
This delightfully verbose news item sums up the “Bodega” method of doing business:
The Bodega. – Few residents in London are unaware of the existence of the wine stores of Messrs. Lavery & Co. in Glass-house Street, Regent-Street, known more similarly by its trademark, “The Bodega”, where wines of the highest qualities are retailed in the smallest quantities, either in the form of the occasional glass for luncheon, or the modest gallon for limited homesteads. This kind of enterprise, it may be said, was altogether unknown in the wine trade, and it can easily be believed that it has excited no little jealousy on the part of the old-fashioned wine merchants, to whom the infringement of the traditions of the trade could but appear to be not only heretical but mischievous. The success that has attended the enterprise of Messrs. Lavery & Co. has proved that the latter surmises were correct. In Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Glasgow, Messrs. Lavery & Co. have opened the same character of wine bar, and with no difference in the result. The visitor “tastes” as a matter of passing convenience, according to his humour, and, if so minded can order more largely upon the sample set before him. The success spoken of has suggested the establishment of similar stores in the City, and yesterday afternoon a few friends were invited to Nos. 5 and 6 Bucklersbury, to inspect the new premises taken for the purpose. The arrangements are similar to those alluded to, both at the West End and in the provinces, and there can be little doubt the good fortune which is rewarded Messrs. Lavery & Co.’s efforts elsewhere will not be denied them in the heart of the great metropolis, where such institutions have not only larger public within reach as regards the daily necessities of refreshment, but one the best calculated to avail itself of the economical opportunities which it is the special province of “The Bodega” and its branches to afford.
27 August 1874, The Shipping And Mercantile Gazette, London.
The Bodega’s offered “wines from the wood” and Champagne by the bottle. In 1876, Lavery took one of his Manchester competitors to court for using the name “Bodega”, alleging that as a name and method of doing business it was not in use before he opened The Bodega Wine Company.
Lavery seems to have done rather well for himself, he disolved his original partnership with Francis Alfred Nicholson in 1871, and in 1881 he was to be found at Gosport taking to the waves in his yawl and cutter. In 1882 the Royal Portsmouth Yacht Club noted that member Mr. Lavery “used to run their refreshment department”. In 1895, Lavery and fellow board member of the Bodega Company, Edward Talbot Wolesley (b. 1849) wind up their interests in the Mexican Tobacco Plantation Ltd and in 1896, Lavery and another Bodgea board member, John Henry Mortimer Scott become directors of the vendor syndicate for the Almaraz Tin Mining and Smelting Company (with interests in Spanish tin mines).
In 1897, The Bodega Company is incorporated and shares are sold. It is described thus: “So long established that no description is necessary in the prospectus!”
1901, Standard Newspaper Advertisement. British Newspaper Archives. Some of these branches are noted on Pubwiki.
In 1901, as Edward Talbot Wolesley was buying up The Durham Ox, The Bodega Company had 10 branches in London, 3 in Birmingham and further establishments in Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, Dundee, Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Cardiff, Wolverhampton, Ryde, Wigan, Folkestone, Sheffield, Brighton and Hastings. (28 branches in all).
They provided Wine, Spirits, Liquors, Cigars and even sell their own Bodega Smoking Mixture in branded tins. The Bodega Trade Mark was protected, and the shield device (which can be seen on the front of the Nottingham building), was described as having “black letters on an orange band, crossing a shield with a garter at the foot.”
In 1901, Edward Talbot Wolesley found himself being tasked with purchasing The Durham Ox, and in 1902, GD Martin’s design was realised on Pelham Street.
Bodega shield (sketch) as it appears on the front of the building now.
The pub was licenced on behalf of Wolesley, Chairman of The Bodega Company Limited, London, at the Nottingham Sessions. “A great improvement had been effected. The building would be more open to police supervision than ever the old house was.” The upstairs Billiard Room was sanctioned as long as no side entrance was available for use by the public. Permission was granted.
1902 Advertisement for the Bexhill on Sea branch of Bodega, placed in the Bexhill on Sea Observer in December (around the same time that the Nottingham branch would have opened.) British Newspaper Archive.
In 1903, the licence for the Nottingham Bodega passed from Edward Talbot Wolesley to Cuthbert Johnson Collingwood, a bar manager for several branches of the chain, who had become Managing Director of the Bodega Company.
In 1904 the Nottingham Evening Post reported that Wolesley, former chairman of the company, had been declared bankrupt and resigned his post in 1903 over some irregularities connected to his purchase of the Durham Ox (and other establishments around the same time). He had received £9,180 in “secret commission” which was considered to be fraud!
The Bodega is listed as a “Billiard Saloon” around 1904 and regular advertisements for staff continue to appear in local papers. By 1909 there are 34 branches of Bodega around the country.
The Bodega, as it is in 2019. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Listen out to Radio Nottingham tomorrow (8 November 2019 around 2pm) for more about The Bodega and read the next installment of this blog coming soon!
After the success of my sold out talk at West Bridgford Library back in June, I will be delivering my photo illustated talk on that other well known Victorian architect of Nottingham, Thomas Chambers Hine at Beeston Library on 19 February 2020.
The talk starts at 2pm and should last around 1 hour. Tickets are £3 each. Beeston Library has disabled access and there will be space for wheelchairs.
Thanks to Alec Frusher (a keen Nottingham food blogger who follows me on Twitter, and who just happens to work in one of the largest Watson Fothergill buildings in the city) I was able go inside the building on King Street now known as Fothergill House. It was built as a Department Store for Jessop & Son circa 1895.
The Jessops building has 7 floors and a tower and I was going as close to the top as I could! Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Some changable summer weather struck just as I arrived to meet Alec to explore the floors at the top of the buildings but we pressed on and I took a few photos as we went.
This part of the building is now called Fothergill House in honour of its architect. Photo: Lucy Brouwer Photo: Lucy Brouwer
At the firm where Alec works they have meeting rooms with appropriate names. (They’ve also commemorated Zebedee Jessop, one of the founders of the Store.)
Through a locked door to the disused upper levels… Photo: Lucy Brouwer
We went up two flights of stairs to access the rooms that now hold tanks and heating. I think originally they were part of the staff accomodation.
The upper rooms were in a bit of a state, but some of the features had been uncovered… Photo: Lucy Brouwer
The paint was peeling off, strip lights had been added and it was a bit dusty. There were some exploratory holes in the walls in places, but otherwise the structure looked in decent shape.
It became apparent that the view from the windows would be pretty impressive, even on a misty wet day. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
There seemed to be original leaded windows on each side, and lots of strudy woodwork to support the structure.
And so it proved. Across the gable roofline of the rest of the building with characteristically large Fothergill chimneys. You can see the corner of the old Elite Cinema (in white). Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Some of the views of Nottingham are blocked by more recent buildings, but you can imagine that the view from here (and from the tower itself) was very impressive when this was built in 1895 – it would have been one of the tallest structures around.
A pretty special view of Queens Chambers (King Street’s other Fothergill) and Nottingham rooftops even on such a murky day! Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Queens Chambers shares some of the features of Fothergill’s late 1890s Vernacular Style with Jessops and was the next building he built.
This unprepossessing step ladder led up inside the tower, I wasn’t allowed to step inside but I managed to see the rafters… Photo: Lucy Brouwer
We kept going up so I could have a look inside the tower. We didn’t dare go inside it, but I could see that there was a viewing platform at the very top. Was it just built for the view or did it ever have another purpose?
Up inside the tower, you can see the woodwork, the windows and the brick patterning. All looking fairly solid. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
I imagine that the rafters and timbers here are a larger version of the kind of craftsmanship that Fothergill had built into the turrets on his other buildings.
Alec was saving the best bit for last… through this door to the roof. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
After a look around inside, we braved the rain to have a look out on the roof platform. There were metal walkways, so it was very safe to explore inbetween the air-con units added to the modern offices.
We turned round to get a lesser-seen view of the tower. Photo: Lucy BrouwerAnd a view down the back of the roof (towards Parliament St.) Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Jessops was expanded to the back of the site in 1933 when the stone became part of The John Lewis Partnership. From this quick inspection, I’m not sure if the flat roof is part of that or a more recent renovation.
Great Fothergill details, even at the back of the tower. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Pleasingly the back view of the tower had all the elements of Fothergill’s style that you would expect, large chimneys, orange bricks arranged between black timbers, large dormer windows…
I was thrilled to see some of that typical Fothergill brick nogging so close up! Photo: Lucy Brouwer
I love the details of brick nogging and big dormer windows, that hardly anyone will get to see.
Diagonal brickwork in the chimney. Photo: Lucy BrouwerOne for the masonry fans… Photo: Lucy BrouwerMysteriously derelict room on top of the building next door. Any ideas what it was for? Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Huge thanks to Alec for taking me up to the roof and letting me look around as well as to his firm for sparing him the time, and David on reception for showing me some of the Fothergill pictures which decorate the interior.
I found an image of Fothergill’s original plan online. The tower design was slightly altered in the finished building. The John Lewis archive has some photos of the store on their website. Jessops became part of the John Lewis Partnership in 1933, when this photo was taken. They traded on the site until moving to the Victoria Centre in 1972. (Photo: John Lewis Memory Store)The only photos I can find so far of the interior are from 1937. The man on the far left is William Dickinson, nephew of William Daft, one of the firm’s original partners. He worked for Jessops for 72 years starting in 1868 at age 16. Photo: John Lewis Memory Store.
One last Fothergill link I’ve found while digging in the British Newspaper Archives: Lawrence Summers (Fothergill’s right hand man) attended the funeral in 1919 of William Jessop (who had succeeded his father Zebedee Jessop to run the firm).
Learn more about Jessops and Watson Fothergill’s buildings in Nottingham on the next Watson Fothergill Walks in August. Tickets here.
There are a handful of tickets left for the 21 July evening walk and you can get tickets here. Also, I will be conducting some more Watson Fothergill Walks in August 2019.
First up, 18 August sees another Sunday morning walk starting at 10am, which will conclude at Debbie Bryan with tea and cake. Tickets here.
Another chance to try the Watson Fothergill Walk. Tickets here.
I will also be walking in the evening of 22 August, starting at 6pm and finishing up at Fothergill’s pub (for optional food and drinks). Tickets here.
I try to keep the walks to small groups of around 20 people, so if they fill up and you miss oout on tickets, please sign up for the mailing list and try again or think about booking me for a private group tour – I’m interested in taking groups of between 6 and 20 people around Nottingham at times to suit them. Get in touch!
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.
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.
Thanks to Sarah Julian from BBC Radio Nottingham (who had previously been on one of my Watson Fothergill Walks) I recently got the chance to go inside Watson Fothergill’s office building on George Street, Nottingham.
Fothergill’s Office at 15 George Street, with the shop built in at 17, plus the doorway to Brewitt’s Yard. (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)
The current owners have completed the project to turn the building into a residence – making the top two floors that were once home to Fothergill and his team into a two bedroom flat with a kitchen and bathroom reclaimed out of the space that was once part of the cottages that sit at the rear of the building in Brewitt’s Yard. The flat had been on the market and we saw our chance to have a look inside and report for BBC Radio Nottingham on our findings!
Through the door and inside! (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)
The first thing we noticed was the fantastic condition of the tiles inside the vestibule…and then I looked up and saw the carvings!
Inner door with leaded glass and terracotta tiles in hallway. Tiles around the vestibule in lovely condition. Sunflowers and Gothic motifs. (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)Above the door, I was able to decipher some writing… (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)… I thought it looked like it might be something like William Morris’s motto: “Ars Longa, Vita Brevis” (Art lasts but life is short)…(Photo: Lucy Brouwer) …but then I realised I couldn’t quite read the letters because it was in Middle English. One quick search on my phone later…(Photo: Lucy Brouwer)…and I realised it was a quote from Chaucer’s The Parliament of Birds, which Fothergill has applied to the craft of architecture. (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)
Above the door I was able to decipher some writing but it was tricky to see with the automatic light that had been added. It looked quite Gothic and that immediately made me excited because it fitted in with what you might expect Fothergill to have in his building. The carving was in great condition, being inside, but it was really hard to read. At first I thought it might say something along the lines of Ars Longa, Vita Brevis (William Morris’s motto – Art lasts but life is short) which would be appropriate for Fothergill, who would have been familiar with Morris’s work and ideas to some extent. But when I looked closer I realised the reason I couldn’t quite read the text was that it was in Middle English! That A-Level where I read the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales was at last coming in handy. A quick bit of Googling on my phone and all was revealed. This was a few lines from Chaucer – not ones I knew but once I’d worked them out they made sense:
The lyf so short, the craft so longe to lerne. Th’ assay so hard, so sharp the conquerynge,
Something of a fan of all things medieval, of course Fothergill would have something like this, relevant to his trade – to learning crafts and making an effort – above his door to read every time he came in or out.
Sarah Julian interviewing Mr Braga (the present owner’s Father)( Photo: Lucy Brouwer)
Of course these details hadn’t featured on the estate agent’s photos (the property was up for rent, hence Sarah was able to get access) so I was really quite excited… I’d already seen some of the restoration work done on the tiled floor thanks to this blog from the Tile Doctor who carried out the work, but that had just been a tantalising glimpse of what lay ahead. The interior retains a lot of the details that might be expected of a building with such a flamboyant exterior. Colourful Gothic -inspired stained glass in the hall for instance.
Through the door and inside to see more of Fothergill’s details. (Photo: Lucy Brouwer)
Another instalment coming up… I’ll share photos of the interior as the office is converted into a flat (now let) and piece together a little about how Fothergill might have worked in the building.
Listen out to BBC Radio Nottingham as the interview should be on Sarah’s morning show sometime this week…
