Watt, Richard Harding

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Watt, Richard Harding (1842–1913). English creator of buildings out of architectural features collected from demolition contractors. He worked with clay models to convey his ideas to executive architects (including Walter Aston (1861–1905), John Brooke (1853–1914), Harry Smith Fairhurst (1868–1945), J. H. France (fl. early C20), and W. Longworth (fl. early C20), and created a series of very remarkable and original eclectic buildings in Knutsford, Ches., in the years before the 1914–18 war. Among his most extraordinary works are the Gaskell Memorial Tower with the adjacent King's Coffee House (1907–8), the Old Croft (1895—with tower of 1907), Moorgarth (1898), the Ruskin Rooms and Cottages (1899–1902), Swinton Square (1902), cottages in Drury Lane, houses in Legh Road, and the laundry in Knutsford Mere (all c.1904). Stylistically, the buildings tend to the Italianate, with touches of Moorish. Classical, and the exotic about them.

Bibliography

A. S. Gray (1985);
Pevsner (ed.), BoE, Cheshire (1971)