About

Discover more about architect Charles Watson on a walk around the city he knew and helped to design.


Born in South Hiendley in 1771, the son of John Watson, a surveyor, he trained in Wakefield with William Lindley of Doncaster, who built South Parade in Wakefield. Charles then designed much of the St John’s Square area.


Charles married Mary Cripps, daughter of the Vicar of Darton, in 1807. She was born in Birthwaite Hall, Kexborough in 1768. The couple moved to York where he took James Pigott Pritchett into partnership in 1813. Watson’s reputation was made by the Wakefield Court House (Sessions House) in 1807. He was the most innovative architect in the north for some years but, after his move to York, produced fewer such buildings.


The West Riding Pauper and Lunatic Asylum (later Stanley Royd), a joint work with Pritchett, was the most modern “Asylum” in its treatment of mentally ill patients. The building was hailed as a major step forward in mental health treatment and the hospital was nationally admired for its relatively humane treatment of patients. Watson died in 1836, his reputation overshadowed by Pritchett’s. Of his and Mary’s eight children, only two outlived him.


Pritchett developed his reputation and designed buildings all over York and West Yorkshire including Huddersfield Railway Station and several churches and chapels. Watson’s plan for the South Parade area was to expand it to include a West Parade but only the Methodist Chapel was built and this was demolished in 1964.


Find out more about Charles Watson and his architecture on the Wakefield Civic Society website.


Download the full PDF map leaflet.


Published by Wakefield Civic Society.


Text: John Seacome.


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