Watson Fothergill Walk… from the comfort of your own home!
This year I haven’t been able to take as many people as I would have liked out on the Watson Fothergill Walk… but I have been able to take more photos of some of Nottingham’s most interesting Victorian buildings.
So I’m delighted to present an online version of the tour – The Watson Fothergill Virtual Walk! I’ve picked my favourite buildings to put together a live online version and I hope you will be able to join me zia Zoom.
The first of these will be on Thursday 3 December at 7pm and tickets are £5 (plus a small booking fee). I hope to add more dates so get in touch and let me know if you’d like to take part.
Gift Vouchers
When it becomes possible to lead tour groups again (in 2021) I will be planning lots more walk dates. Meanwhile you can buy gift vouchers which can be exchanged for tickets (via Eventbrite).
If you have a group like talks on interesting subjects, I am now able to offer the Watson Fothergill Virtual Walk as a private illustrated Zoom talk. Reasonable rates! Get in touch for more details.
While I’m still available for walks (Covid-19 regulations permitting) as private bookings and I have gift vouchers on offer (if you’d like to have a walk to look forward to in 2021), I’m also trying to research more buildings for future walks and talks on the architecture of Nottingham. But I get so easily distracted…
I was thinking about a photo that I’d seen online, but could not remember where I’d seen it. (The constant stream of content on social media makes it tricky to pin down sources.) But, a few tweets fired at some contacts proved that I hadn’t imagined it, here was the picture:
Thanks Nottinghasm who originally found the photo in one of the Iliffe and Baguley Victorian Nottingham books which feature images from the illusive Nottingham Historical Film Unit. These books, published in the 1970s, are scattered around Notts Libraries Local History shelves…
A photo of the construction of the railway from Nottingham Victoria Station, the construction of which had caused the demolition of Watson Fothergill’s original office on Clinton Street. The photo shows Fothergill’s 1896 Furley & Co building, which now house Lloyds Bank on the corner of Lower Parliament Street and Clinton Street West (it features on The Watson Fothergill Walk).
The corner of Clinton Street West, from the opposite angle. Photo: Lucy BrouwerThe front of the building on The Watson Fothergill Walk. Photo: Dominic Morrow.
A flurry of further tweets uncovered a higher quality version of the railway construction photo:
Clinton Street railway cutting 1899. A clearer version of the photo. Thank you Mike
And another photo of railway work next to a Fothergill building turned up. This time the Nottingham and Notts Bank on Thurland Street, which is visible on the left hand side of this picture:
Thurland Street Railway Cutting (circa 1899) Thanks to Nottinghasm and Nigel for bringing this one to my attention. This is the reverse angle. Thurland Street Bank on The Watson Fothergill Walk. Photo: Alison Cussans.
Nigel King, who is a photographer himself, then ran the Clinton Street photo through a colouriser on the My Heritage website and this brought out some remarkable details!
Here’s a colourised version – you can just see the signage on the side of the Furley & Co building. Thanks NigelYou can even see the workmen! Thanks Matt
So you can see how a bit of research can turn up some great views of Nottingham’s past, but also how it’s very easy to get thrown off course! It’s also very difficult to credit photos correctly, the original books are full of such treasures.
Last week I attended the launch (via Zoom) of the new edition of The Buildings of England: Nottinghamshire, commonly known as The Pevsner Guide.
The hefty new edition of The Buildings of England: Nottinghamshire.
You can watch the interview with Clare Hartwell, who has throughly revised and updated the Nottinghamshire guide, on Five Leaves Bookshop’s YouTube channel.
As you can see the new 2020 edition (bottom) has somewhat expanded on the previous editions! (the 1997 reprint of the 2nd edition, and the pocket-sized Penguin from 1951).
The Pevsner Guides are pretty much the bible for anyone doing research on architects and architecture and I’ve now got all three editions of the Nottinghamshire book, as well as Elain Harwood’s Nottingham City Guide.
The edition of the Nottingham city guide that I regularly use for researching my walks. As you can see, I’ve bookmarked a lot of buildings!
Nottinghamshire was the second county of England that Nikolaus Pevsner covered when he originally put the guides together in the 1950s. The guides have evolved from pocket-sized paperbacks to hefty hardbacks that offer a summary of the architecture of each county.
The first edition also features Southwell Minster on the cover, but the book was considerably cheaper and more portable!
Much as I wish they were a little more portable, the new one is more than double the size of the last edition and weighs almost a kilo, it is really worth taking them with you on your travels (or perhaps making appropriate notes before you set off). I wonder, have Yale University Press considered making an online version available to purchasers of the book? It would make a fantastic app! (So far there’s only a Pevsner Architectural Glossary available).
Plenty of bookmarks in this, the 2nd edition, that I bought second hand at the much missed Jermy & Westerman bookshop.
Something of Pevsner’s eccentricity may have been lost – indeed in his first Nottinghamshire edition he attributes the bank in Newark to “Fothergill & Watson”, Fothergill’s name change being the source of no end of confusion! – but as a basis for discoving more details about the architecture around you, the guides are completely indispensible.
The new edition has been lavishly illustrated with photographs, the majority of which are by Martine Hamilton Knight. Here’s Watson Fothergill’s Office (as well Papplewick Pumping Station and Trent Navigation Warehouse in Newark)
For more on Pevsner listen to this excellent BBC Radio 4 Programme, Pevsner: Through Outsider’s Eyes (I’m off to listen to it again).
At last! The walks are returning with added social distancing! Having completed the preparation for Visit England’s We’re Good To Go mark, I am now delighted to invite groups of up to 5 people (maximum groups are 6 so that includes your guide!) to accompany me on The Watson Fothergill Walk, tour of Nottingham city centre.
As groups have to remain small for now, I am offering private tours for groups of up to 5 people. Please contact me if you can make up a group of 5 or are happy to join another small group to make up a tour. The walk takes 2 hours and is best at quiet times of day.
I am also scheduling Sunday morning walks… the first will start at 10am, on 2 August 2020. Tickets are £12 each.
The next will be on 16 August 2020, 10am. Again tickets are £12.
NEWS FLASH! These have filled up very quickly so I have added more and will add more as demand dictates. If you can do weekdays please let me know as with small groups it might be possible to conduct tours at quieter times. TICKETS for all forthcoming dates (August 2, 16, 23, 30) are on Eventbrite.
If you would like to organise a walk for up to five people, please contact Lucy to select a suitable date and time.
At the moment I am only able to take groups of up to 6 (including me!) so there are just 5 tickets for The Carrington Crawl on 15 August 2020.
NEWS FLASH! The first walk is already full! But I have added more dates (Aug 20, 11am & Aug 22, 2pm): Tickets for all forthcoming walks are available on Eventbrite.
If you have a group of 5 people or less and would like to arrange a time to do the walk then please get in touch. (I can also do walks on weekdays.)
We successfully tried out the walk with social distancing in place and so I’d like to try more dates.
Thanks to the Promenaders for trying out The Carrington Crawl!
The Carrington Crawl looks at the domestic architecture of Watson Fothergill and his assistant LG Summers at Mapperley Road, Sherwood Rise and Carrington.
In support of Primary taking their talk series Tell Me Something I Don’t Know online for a special event, some of their past talks are now available to listen to on Soundcloud.
I talked about my research into Watson Fothergill’s assistant, Lawrence George Summers and some of the paths that led me to explore.
I’ve written about being on the trail of Summers before here and here.
Design for a Town Hall by Lawrence G Summers. Lithograph from The Buildings News, 1974.
The Fothergill book I refer to in the talk is Fothergill: A Catalogue of the Works of Watson Fothergill by Darren Turner, which is available from the author.
The door to L.G. Summers office, inside 15 George Street, Nottingham. Photo: Lucy Brouwer.Douglas Byng. Half-Brother of Louise, L.G. Summers’ wife, and one of “The Queens of England”
The last walk I took to look at architecture in Nottingham, before Lockdown, was around The Park Estate.
For this installment of my series of interviews with people I’ve met through doing The Watson Fothergill Walk, I talked to Dan Simpkin, who lives in The Park and is responsible for maintaining the @theparkestate Instagram account, a great source of photos and information on the history and architecture of this unique part of Nottingham.
Lucy Brouwer: You take photos and maintain the Instagram account @theparkestate, can you briefly tell me how that came about and what you hope to achieve through sharing your knowledge of Park houses?
Dan Simpkin: I’ve lived in The Park for over fifteen years and love the architecture, atmosphere and community. I’ve recently become a committee member of the Nottingham Park Residents’ Association (NPRA) who organise events aimed at encouraging community within the estate with the remit to look after their social media. I’ve got an interest in architecture, photography and history, and like to walk, so as I’m walking around The Park I naturally take a lot of photographs. I had the idea that Instagram might be a good addition to the NPRA communications as a way to bring attention to their underused website looking at all the pre-1918 houses in The Park.
Screen shot ofthe NPRA’s Nottingham Park Houses website. A fantastic resource for home owners and anyone interested in the architecture and history of Nottingham’s Park Estate.
I hope that the Instagram profile highlights how rich in history and architecture The Park is. In short, I’d like people to be more engaged and knowledgable about the built environment we have so close to Nottingham City Centre, and treasure it as much as I do.
LB: Do you have a favourite house in The Park? Which one and why?
DS: I’d say I have a few favourite houses. Not one favourite. In no particular order:
LB:What do you enjoy about living in The Park Estate?
DS: The feeling that you’re in a calm place when you’re less than half a mile away from Nottingham City Centre. The great architecture, landscape and light. The sense of community is also great, which you might not expect in a large city.
LB: You’ve recently been sharing stories about notable people who have lived in The Park over the years. Do you have one of these you’d like to share?
DS: When I was lookinh into past residents’ lives, I think the stories of adversity spoke to me most: Albert Ball’s nationally mourned death, Dame Laura Knight‘s recognition in the male-dominated art world, and Justin Fashanu’s tragic life, were all stories I’d heard but not read about in detail before. To hear about these people’s lives, when they have lived within metres of where I live, really bought it home to me.
LB: Anything else you’d like to add about things you’re working on?
DS: Although the Instagram profile @theparkestate is predominantly my photography, I’m very much an amateur. I’m keen to feature proper photographers that see and create different types of images. I like the seasons being well represented, The Park is as nice a place in Autumn and Winter as in the Spring and Summer months, maybe more atmospheric. I’ve also got feature series in the pipeline of Park stained glass and modern Park architecture as well as a look at nature. Suggestions and contributions are always welcome though. I love hearing what people want to see and their experience of this very special area.
Many thanks to Dan for his contribution, in his “day job” Dan is Creative Director of Brand Design Agency Simpkin Burley, based in West Bridgford.
While we’re not able to get out and about as much as we’d like, I thought I’d catch up with some of the people I’ve discovered through doing my Watson Fothergill Walks. This time, I asked Photographer Lamar Francois (who is responsible for the great photos of me in action that grace this website!) – about his work, and some of his favourite Nottingham buildings.
Lucy Brouwer: As a photographer who specialises in photographing architecture, what makes a building interesting to photograph?
Lamar Francois: I find architecture fascinating to photograph because buildings can be admired in terms of their forms and methods of construction – which in turn is something which can be a particular trademark of a particular architect, say the use of black and deep red brickwork for many of Watson Fothergill developments.
Photo taken by Lamar during the Watson Fothergill Walk tour. Photo: Lamar Francois
Architecture is also to examine from the point of view of how buildings are designed to integrate with each other to be able to fit in with their surroundings to make a fascinating urban cityscape, and to provide useful environments for their occupants.
In general I also enjoy really digging into details as to how and why certain things are engineered the way they are – having studied maths and physics as an undergraduate and worked within science.
LB: Do you have a favourite building in Nottingham? Which one and why?
LF: Two buildings spring to mind, which I feel, are particularly memorable:
Albert Nelson Bromley‘s Boots flagship – now a branch of Zara on Pelham Street – the amount of ornamentation and detailing to the exterior elevation facing towards the Council House is really something to admire. I like the contrasts with the arched windows, and curved glass entrance with the straight vertical columns separating the windows above.
GSK Carbon Neutral Laboratory for Sustainable Chemistry, University of Nottingham. Photo: Lamar Francois
In terms of more modern builds, one which I really appreciate is the GSK Carbon Neutral Laboratory – mostly from a point of view of how it used more traditional laminated timber frames, as well as some very clever internal engineering to minimise the use of natural resources. The design also has a really distinctive and memorable form which I admire.
LB: Do you have a favourite photo that you’ve taken of a Nottingham building?
LF: My favourite image of a Nottingham building so far – probably one which I made of the new Confetti build by Allan Joyce back last year. The changeable weather conditions on the day helped highlight and contrast the form of the building against a moody sky – with sunlight highlighting it’s frontages, helped by shadows cast from buildings on the opposing side where I was photographing from.
Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies, Nottingham. Photo: Lamar Francois
LB:You’re working on a book of your photos. What sort of subjects can we expect to see in it?
LF: In my upcoming book From The Streets of Nottingham I’ve decided to take a broader look at the urban landscape and showcase a variety of interesting street scenes and quirky details which I’ve seen along the way. I’ve also married this a bit more with my other passion of candid photography to showcase some fascinating events which have taken place in the last couple of years.
I’ve had to pause production due to the current lockdown but I aim to get this produced and available for sale as soon as my suppliers are able to, with the book being in an advanced stage of drafting.
Many thanks to Lamar for answering my questions and letting me show off his photos! You can contact Lamar via his website or follow his Facebook page.
At the moment, we’re not able to go out at our leisure to look at Nottingham (or anywhere else for that matter), so I decided to catch up with some of the interesting people who I’ve met through doing these Watson Fothergill Walks. For this installment I talked to Felicity Whittle, of Gold Star Guides, who conducts the Nottingham Booklovers Tour and she recently launched a programme of virtual #NottGoing Out tours, including one of Nottingham’s Exchange Arcade.
Lucy Brouwer: You conduct the Nottingham Booklovers Tour, looking at writers produced by the city and the places that feature in their books. Have you found that there is a sense of place in Nottingham literature?
Felicity Whittle: Yes, many local writers most definitely convey a sense of place and you can often follow a route through the city in their novels. There is an online Alan Sillitoe trail that imagines following the two squaddies who are out to get Arthur Seaton in ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’; it follows their progress across the city through the various places and pubs that are mentioned in the novel.
The novels of John Harvey, with his police detective Charlie Resnick, have a great sense of place, though the Nottingham he (Resnick) worked in has changed somewhat over the last couple of decades. But Harvey includes events such as a film festival at Broadway, visiting stalls in the Vic Centre market or shops in Broadmarsh, and you get a real sense of the neighbourhoods in which his characters live, be that St Anne’s or the Park estate.
Kim Slater, who writes thrillers under the name KL Slater, has said that although she uses several different parts of the city for her novels she does sometimes move things around a bit to fit the requirements of her characters or her plots. I’m sure she’s not alone amongst writers in doing this!
LB: Do you have a favourite building in Nottingham? Which one and why?
FW: The Council House. I’ve recently become a volunteer tour guide there so have learned more about it and about Exchange Arcade – I love its grandeur and the sense of civic pride that it evokes. There are all sorts of amazing details, from the vacuum system built into the skirting boards, to the paintings that incorporate Nottingham people into historical scenes, which make it a very special place.
Nottingham’s Council House, by architect Thomas Cecil Howitt. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
LB: Nottingham architect Thomas Chambers Hine‘s granddaughter Muriel was a novelist, have you read any of her work? Does she draw on her family background in her books?
FW: Her most autobiographical book is probably ‘A Great Adventure’, in which a family move from Wollaton to a house in the Raleigh Street area of Lacingham (a thinly disguised version of Nottingham!). The father is an architect who wins a competition to design a hospital… so you can see the parallels with her own family life.
The house on Raleigh Street, Nottingham where Muriel Hine’s father George Thomas Hine lived. Designed by Hine and Son. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
In ‘Wild Rye’ the main character comes to live in Lacingham with her grandparents who seem to be based on Hine’s own grandparents. In the novel they live in a big house in the Oxford Street area, so again you can see the influences of her own experience.
Thomas Chambers Hine’s house and office on corner of Regent Street and Oxford Street, Nottingham. Photo: Lucy Brouwer
Other of her novels address very specifically the changing position of women at the turn of the 20th century, the struggle for the vote and whether they needed a man, marriage, children, etc. to feel complete or what the possibilities were of life without any of those things. They are interesting to read because although it can seem quite foreign to us, she was writing about attitudes and conventions that were very real in her lifetime.
LB: Do you find that people notice the buildings in Nottingham? Do you think conducting tours changes the way people see a place?
FW: I find people notice buildings to a certain extent, but often don’t see the detail. One of the best rewards for a guide (as I’m sure you know), is one someone says the ‘I never noticed that before’ phrase, often about somewhere that they’ve walked past a thousand times, or worked nearby but never really looked at. It makes all that research worthwhile!
Without trying to sound too philosophical or mystical about it, I think that hearing the stories about a building, knowing that some other person had a particular connection with it, sort of personalises our built environment and gives us a relationship with those who have been in this place before us.
Many thanks to Felicity for answering my questions. You can keep up with all her tours, both virtual and live, via her Facebook page.
Felicity is hosting a short series of themed virtual tours of Nottingham locations:
While I’m staying at home (and not in Nottingham city centre), my brother Jim, who does live in the city, offered to take his camera on a walk to have a look at one of the buldings that I feature on my Watson Fothergill Walk walking tour.
So here are the results – a look at one of my favourite Fothergill buildings that serves as a taster for the tour.
