Tower House

The Tower house was built a little after 1857 (the date on the plans) and was designed by Architect Henry Laxton. One of the few buildings retained when the whole of Riverside was redeveloped by architect Quinlan Terry in 1986. It is easy to see why this Italianate building was maintained.

Before the present time, Tower House was part of the Palm Court Hotel.

While researching at the Local Studies Library, I found a lovely letter from Mrs Nurison to the librarian in 1984, who had noticed that Tower house was being renovated.

“This was my home from 1907-8 to 1924…There were beautiful murals on two drawing room walls in the formal Italian Style popular in the 1950s... The central figure was a highly draped dancing girl on a pinnacle with a framework of delicate, intricate design all in soft, charming colours – the same design filled the narrow space between the French windows…on each side of a marble fireplace.”

The artist may have come specifically to do these murals from Italy.

In 1975, the building was occupied and used as a woman’s refuge, set up by the formidable Erin Prizzy, an activist and advocate against domestic violence.

Before the Riverside redevelopment in 1986, the building had been converted into flats. What was once the drawing room became a small restaurant with whitewashed walls and Japanese paper.

After further investigation, I found that Mrs Nourison’s father, Major E.R. Barton, had found an ancient blunderbuss in a closed-up prison cell of the old Richmond Watch, just beside the coal cellar where the original Richmond Bridge toll house had stood.