Former Lenton Vicarage

This list entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 05/06/2018

SK53NE 646-1/7/796

NOTTINGHAM Lenton CHURCH STREET(South side) No 35, Unity House Former Lenton Vicarage

(Formerly listed as Old Vicarage, CHURCH STREET)

GV II Lenton Vicarage was constructed in 1842, probably to the designs of AI Stevens.

Details

A vicarage, converted to flats in the late C20. Constructed of red brick with ashlar dressings and patterned tile roof with two partly rendered side wall stacks. Plinth, coped gables with kneelers. Windows are mainly glazing bar sashes with stone surrounds and mullions.

Two storeys plus attics; three x three bays. Street front has to left a projecting gabled wing with a canted bay window, seven-lights, and above it, on each floor, a two-light mullioned window. To right, a Tudor arched doorway with label mould, renewed door and fanlight. Above it, a two-light mullioned window. To right, beyond a truncated side wall stack, a single window on each floor. Left return has a central porch, late C20, flanked by single windows. Above, a mullioned window and to left, a through-eaves dormer with coped gable. To left, a C20 addition, two storeys. Included for group value.

Historical note: Lenton Vicarage was the home of Helen Kirkpatrick Watts (1881-1972) one of Nottingham’s best-known suffragettes.  Helen moved to the vicarage in 1893 when her father, Revd. Alan Hunter Watts, became vicar of Holy Trinity. Helen joined the Nottingham branch of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), the militant suffrage group founded by Emmeline Pankhurst, after hearing Christabel Pankhurst speak at a meeting in Nottingham in December 1907; Helen became active in the local WSPU branch and wrote several letters to the Nottinghamshire Guardian in favour of women’s suffrage.

In 1909 Helen was arrested in London during a march from Caxton Hall, Westminster, to the Houses of Parliament, following her attendance at the WSPU’s ‘Women’s Parliament’. Charged with obstruction, she refused to pay the fine, in accordance with WSPU policy, and was sent to Holloway Prison for a month, becoming Nottingham’s first suffrage prisoner. She was arrested twice more in 1909, and on the second occasion was charged with disorderly conduct for attempting to enter Leicester’s Albert Hall during a meeting attended by Winston Churchill. In Leicester Gaol she protested against prison conditions by breaking her cell windows and went on hunger strike and was released after five days. She addressed several public meetings in Nottingham about her suffrage experiences, and posed for a photograph in her prison uniform. She left Nottingham in 1912.

This list entry was amended in 2018 as part of the centenary commemorations of the 1918 Representation of the People Act.

Listing NGR: SK5551139336