Gaskell Memorial Tower and King's Coffee House

The Gaskell Memorial Tower and King’s Coffee House stand in King Street, Knutsford, Cheshire. The building was designed by Richard Harding Watt with help from W. Longworth and opened in 1907. It once housed council offices, a coffee house with a ballroom, and a memorial to the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. Watt, a local businessman and philanthropist, wanted to draw people away from the town’s inns and to honour Mrs Gaskell, who had lived in Knutsford and set parts of Cranford there. The coffee house supplied newspapers and journals as well as food and drink. A plaque marking the 150th anniversary of Mrs Gaskell’s birth was added in 1960. The tower is about 21 metres high and three metres square, built mainly of sandstone with a Portland stone upper section. Its style mixes Italianate and Arts and Crafts elements, and Nikolaus Pevsner compared it to buildings in Barcelona. Two images of Mrs Gaskell appear on the tower: a stone bust and a bronze relief by Achille d’Orsi. Below the relief is a carved list of her novels and the words “Though he slay me yet will I trust in him.” A plaque records that the tower was erected in her memory by Richard Harding Watt in 1907. Visitors find a recessed porch with an octagonal column, a large oriel window, and a stepped parapet on the coffee house front. A square tower on the left carries a domed lantern and an external staircase. At the rear are Doric columns moved from St Peter’s Church in Manchester, with the wheels that once carried them still nearby. Inside the courtyard formed between the main block and the tower, the architectural contrasts are clear. The tower’s bow windows, projecting blocks, and arcade of windows create a striking outline against the sky.