Watson Fothergill is one of my favourite Nottingham architects and I’ve written about him several times before. He had to move his architectural offices to George Street in Nottingham due to the building of the then Nottingham Victoria railway station (now Victoria Centre shopping centre) and this Grade II listed building was built in 1895. In 2015 part of the frontage was damaged by a truck and finally in the last month or so it has been repaired, so I went along to take photos. It says something about how well loved the building is that while I was there several people came up to me to express how pleased they were with the quality of the repair work.
You’d never know that the area above the door had had a large part of it missing, so whoever did the job really did do some excellent work. It’s a beautiful building, somehow overlooked by a lot of people. The statues are all architect themed – the main statue is a representation of a medieval architect and the busts are of Augustus Pugin (architect of the interior of the Palace of Westminster and St Barnabas Cathedral) and George Edmund Street (architect of the Royal Courts of Justice).
The terracotta panels show the construction of classical, medieval and Elizabethan buildings – the last one is presumed to be that of Wollaton Hall (it certainly looks like it to me).
It’s a lovely building and I’m told the Council are going to take some measures to make sure traffic doesn’t get too close again.
You can find more photos here.
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