Richard Harding Watt

Richard Harding Watt (1842–1913) was an English designer who worked with four professional architects to create large houses and associated buildings in the town of Knutsford, Cheshire.

[1] Watt designed some buildings himself, but usually used four architects to execute his plans, namely Walter Aston, John Brooke, Harry S. Fairhurst, and William Longworth.

[2] In 1898 Watt bought a tannery on Drury Lane, to the north of the town centre, and with Fairhurst, adapted the buildings into a laundry and cottages.

[4] The architectural historians Nikolaus Pevsner and Edward Hubbard state that "any Royal Fine Art Commission now would veto such monstrous desecration of a small and pleasant country town".

They describe his motifs as a mixture of Classical, Italianate, Byzantine, and "Unprecedented", and comment on his liking for towers with a jagged outline, domes, and random fenestration.