Nottingham Architecture Special: Watson Fothergill

Watson Fothergill was an English architect who designed over 100 buildings in Nottingham. Many of the city’s most striking buildings and some of my personal favourites were designed by him, so I decided to dedicate this blog post to some of his achievements.

Watson Fothergill was born in 1841 and began working as an architect in his own practice around 1864 until 1912. Once you know what to look for you can easily spot his handiwork – turrets and towers feature often, as do statues and balconies and they range from churches, to banks, to private homes.

Originally a Baptist church, the above was built in 1893 and is now a Pakistani Community Centre. It’s an impressive building and has lots of its original features intact and is built with red brick work which is another familiar feature of Fothergill’s designs.

Below are his offices where he moved in 1893 and which have a particularly Gothic flare. (As you can see there is some damage to the below and I have noticed work being done recently to protect it further).

And here is what was the head office of the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Bank, built around 1877-1882.

I was particularly intrigued by the carvings outside which I’ve since discovered depict the working industries of the region such as coal mining and the names of the towns where the bank had branches.

It’s a massive building and now home to a clothes shop; a very nice shop assistant gave permission for me to take some photos of the impressive interior and these rather lovely stained glass windows.

And finally for now are the newspaper offices for the Nottingham Express newspaper, built in 1875 (currently a Tesco Express).

The author Graham Greene once worked here and there is a plaque from the British Film Institute saying as much tucked away in the original entrance way, which is now chained shut.

Being reminded to look up in a city with as many architectural delights as Nottingham is no bad thing and there will be more posts about Watson Forthergill’s work to come.

You can find more of my photos of Nottingham here.