A Recce in Nottingham - Architecture 2

 

A detail of the former Guildhall

Continuing the recce for the Sheffield U3A Geology Group field trip to Nottingham, Paul May and I got back into the city centre from our brief exploration of the area around The Park and Castle Rock, just before it started to rain very heavily.

 

The Congregational Chapel on Castle Gate

 

Passing the Congregational Chapel (1863) on Castle Gate, we noted that the uniformly buff sandstone dressings are probably another example of Darley Dale stone, with its intricate detailing to the pediment, cornice and door and window surrounds still looking sharp and in good condition.

 

In the Nottingham Contemporary Gallery

 

Standing under shelter on Lister Gate, we quickly ate our lunch and continued to St. Peter’s church in the pouring rain but, having already had a good look at it, I briefly showed Paul the interior and we just waited patiently and talked until the rain finally stopped. We then headed up to the Lace Market – via the Nottingham Contemporary Gallery, where the current exhibition was entitled “Hollow Earth: Art, Caves & The Subterranean Imaginary.”

 

A detail of the porch at St. Mary's church

 

Continuing along High Pavement, we had a quick look at the old County Gaol and the adjoining Shire Hall, which I had surveyed in some detail on my previous day out to Nottingham, before moving on to St. Mary’s church, which essentially dates to the C15, but has some C14 remains.

A view up to the tower

We had spent so much time trying to avoid the rain at St. Peter’s church that it was 15:30 by the time we arrived at the south porch, only to find that it was closed. We had to satisfy ourselves with a brief look at the exterior, which has been subjected to many phases of restoration – including wholesale replacement of the mediaeval masonry by late Georgian and Victorian architects.

 

The tower

 

More recent restoration has concentrated on the essential replacement of highly weathered or otherwise defective masonry, with very many different types of sandstone having been used to try and match the original Triassic sandstone, which was quarried from the Tarporley Siltstone Formation at nearby Sneinton or Gedling.

 

A headstone made with Swithland slate

 

We simply didn’t have enough time to look for any of these and just had a quick look at some of the Swithland slate headstones in the churchyard. We then started to make our way back to the city centre through an area dominated by vast red brick factories and warehouses that were essential to the lace manufacturing industry, for which Nottingham was world famous.

 

An interpretation of the Fothergill Warehouse

 

In a couple of places we encountered inclined display panels, with braille translations, that comprise a relief sculpture carved in Italian Carrara marble, which depict the building that they are standing in front of - including the Fothergill Warehouse (1897) and the Adams and Page Building (1855) - but again there was no time to look at these buildings.

 

The entrance to No. 29 Stoney Street

 

The works and warehouse are essentially functional in their design, but they look very elegant and the entrances to several works have elaborately carved Jurassic Ancaster limestone door surrounds. They also have and varying degrees of figurative sculpture and there is a wide range of rustication and finishes to the masonry, which does sometimes include Derbyshire gritstone.

 

A detailing of the tooling on the Adams Building

An hour could have been spent exploring the Lace Market and we had apparently passed several buildings by the renowned Nottingham architect Thomas. Chambers Hine, but instead we carried on along Stoney Street to the top of Carlton Street and carried on down the hill along Pelham Street, until we reached the junction with Thurland Street.

 

The Thurland Hall public house

 

The Derbyshire gritstone Thurland Hall public house (1898-1900) stands on the east corner and on the other is the former Nottingham and Notts Bank, which was built from 1879 to 1882 to designs by Watson Fothergill and is considered to be his best work.

 

The former Nottingham and Notts Bank

It was now just past 4 o’clock in the afternoon and the sun was starting to sink in the sky, with most of the buildings now in shade and we had the best view of the Darley Dale sandstone ashlar, with band courses and alternate voussoirs on arches and colonnettes made in Red Mansfield dolomitic sandstone, although many of these have been restored with Triassic St. Bees sandstone from the Cumbrian coast. 

 

Details of the former Nottingham and Notts Bank

Several ‘granites’ have been used for the plinth and door surrounds, including Rubislaw granite from Aberdeen, pink/red Balmoral Red from Finland, the Blue Pearl variety of larvikite from Norway and a dark grey gneiss like rock that is also thought to have come from Norway.

 

A Portland stone frieze sculpture

 

High above street level there are three very finely carved white Portland stone frieze sculptures, along with a wide variety of grotesques and what is considered to be a monkey – a slang term for a mortgage, which reflects the fact that at one stage the bank owed money to Fothergill, who thus held a mortgage on the building and wanted this to be clearly recorded in stone.

 

The Brian Clough statue and No.11 King Street

 

We arrived too late in the day to really appreciate this fine building and, with a few more historic buildings to see in Nottingham before we finished for the day, we headed back down to Old Market Square and then up to King Street, where we stopped to admire the bronze statue of Brian Clough and No. 11 (1880-1890), by Alfred Waterhouse for the Prudential Assurance Co.

 

The Elite Building

Continuing up Queen Street to Upper Parliament Street, before continuing north along Goldsmith Street, I stopped to take a photo of the very impressive Grade II* Listed Elite Building (1921), a white faience clad steel framed building that was originally a cinema.

 

The Newton Building

 

Our next stop was the Portland stone clad Grade II* Listed Newton Building, at Nottingham Trent University, which was designed in 1952 and built in 1958. From the information that we had with us, we knew that the Portland stone displays some interesting fossils and so we just carried on down Burton Street to the former Guildhall (1888), which has caves beneath it.

 

The former Guildhall

This imposing building by Verity & Hunt of London provides yet another example of Darley Dale stone and, according to Horton and Lott in their report for the Mercian Geologist back in 2005, except for the low level plinth, the stone is an excellent condition. Although I didn’t spend any time looking at the stonework with Paul on this occasion, the detailing still looks crisp on my photos.

 

A detail of the former Guildhall

St. Andrew’s church (1869), by Robert Evans of Nottingham, is built with rock-faced Bulwell stone walling, with bands of thinly bedded, bluish-grey silty limestone - best known to me as the Blue Lias – with the plinth and dressings made of Ancaster stone.

 

The east end of St. Andrew's church

With it now gone 5 o’clock in the afternoon, I stopped to take a very quick photo of the Arkwright Building before we walked the final 125 metres to the Nottingham Trent University tram stop, from which we were very soon on the way back to Phoenix Park.

The Arkwright Building