King Street, Knutsford

A late morning trip to Knutsford. The town likes to trace itself back to King Cnut, but its character is formed by the largely 17th and 18th century buildings in the centre, its green spaces, and the bizarre very early 20th century buildings of Richard Harding Watt. He wasn’t an architect, used a lot of second hand materials, and took his influences from all over the place but especially northern Italy.

The building in the image is part of the Gaskell Memorial Tower and King’s Coffee House. Finding a modern use for such a quirky structure cannot be easy.