Richard Harding Watt

[poliphilo]

Richard Harding Watt (1842-1913) was an amateur architect, who dotted his home town of Knutsford with eccentric, arts and craftsy buildings in the Italian taste. They're very pretty. Knutsford is within commuting distance of Manchester and lots of celebs live in the area- Gary Barlow of Take That, for example. Historically, the town's most famous resident was Elizabeth Gaskell, whose husband was minister at the Unitarian church. Harding Watt built a very peculiar, Italianate tower in her memory. Knutsford is Gaskell's Cranford- but so much changed since her day- notably by Harding Watt- that the BBC filmed their dramatization of the book elsewhere.



This is Harding Watt's Ruskin Reading Rooms- a surprising building- with a surprising history...



And here's another Harding Watt creation just down the road....



 

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

So what are his houses like on the inside? Are they as surprising? Are they fun?

[goddlefrood.livejournal.com]

He tagged on a Tower to his own after a few years, originally it was very conventional. It did and does have the differing doorknobs for the servants and the owners and a few little surprises, but the exteriors of both the houses on Legh Road (where he lived) and the other buildings around the town are much more fun.

Legh Road was used for the exterior shots of the residential street in Shanghai in the film Empire of the Sun, fyi.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like Empire of the Sun. How on earth, did Spielberg come to shoot parts of it in Cheshire?

[goddlefrood.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure, must have been his scouts found Legh Road to be what they were looking for. It has about three or four minutes of screen time in the film.

I do recall he visited once for about two hours; the second unit did the filming, which took them about three months. They also donated the residents' compensation to some charity without prior consultation. That's Hollywood for you, no doubt, maybe they didn't pay anyone at all. It is a good film though.