IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
King Street, NOTTINGHAM, NG1 2AS

"This building was built in 1895-97 by local architect Watson Fothergill for the local Jessops department store. This became part of the John Lewis Partnership, before moving to the new Victoria Centre in the early 1970s. The red facing brick with string course of blue brick and dressed stone, the projecting oriel bays and the Tudor-style gables of Fothergill's distinctive personal style are much in evidence. In fact the building has a steel and concrete frame."

Built 1894-96 to the designs of Frederick Ball and John Lamb.

A classic Watson Fothergill feature hardly ever seen, hidden as it is when nearby the building. It can just be made-out here Image

By Watson Fothergill, 1895, and exhibiting many of his trademarks. Brick with stone dressings, half-timbered gables and tower, and a variety of window styles. Grade II listed. Built for department store, Jessop & Son, now various shops and presumably offices. Watson Fothergill, or Fothergill Watson as he began life, is Nottingham's Victorian architectural superstar. Walking around the city, it's not long before his idiosyncratic buildings jump out. Drawing on English traditions in a style sometimes labelled as Domestic Revival, his copious use of polychromatic bands of stone, timberwork and carved detail are very distinctive. In lesser hands, a mass of features results in an overwrought jumble, but Fothergill, despite apparently never working outside Nottinghamshire, and rarely even outside the city, was clearly skilled enough to blend everything together successfully. A closer view: Image

The pinnacle of Watson Fothergills masterpiece for the Jessops Drapery Shop on King Street. Viewed from The John Lewis Café in the Victoria Centre. Jessops was acquired by John Lewis in the 1920's. Even after the move from King Street the shop continued to be called Jessops into the 1980s. Grade II listed List Entry Number:1254538 https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1254538

Generally known by the name (Jessops) of the Nottingham drapers which grew to occupy all of this row of shops by Watson Fothergill (1895). Jessops was bought by John Lewis in 1933, the first acquisition outside London. It moved from this building in 1972, it continued to trade under the Jessops name until 2002.

The Victorian buildings of King Street are tall and, as it is narrow and runs north and south, often deeply and inconveniently shadowed. On a September evening low sunlight caught the bright brickwork and black woodwork of Watson Fothergill's huge Jessop's Drapery Store (1895). These elaborate and eclectic details, so characteristic of Nottingham's most celebrated Victorian architect, conceal a utilitarian concrete and iron frame. Alan Murray-Rust's Image] shows the whole of the building, which was cleaned and restored in 1990.

Grade II listed. Listing number 1254538. Drapery store, now shops and offices. 1895. By Watson Fothergill of Nottingham for Jessop & Son. Restored c1990.

A bus waits at the bottom stop on King Street before heading off to Westdale Lane, Gedling. King Street and its neighbour, Queen Street (out of frame to the left), are used by almost all bus services to Nottingham's eastern suburbs, and are usually busier than this. Both are also home to some very fine buildings, such as the one visible above the bus.