Watts & Co - Recent History

Recent History

In recent years, Robert Maguire and Keith Murray broke new ground with their pioneering church of St Paul, Bow Common, for which Watts executed the contemporary fittings. The work of Stephen Dykes Bower, in Westminster Abbey, Bury St Edmunds Cathedral and elsewhere, is inextricably associated with Watt’s textiles and embroidery.

The great country house architects, Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir Robert Lorimer, used their wallpapers in their classic interiors; while Lutyens used Watts fabric for upholstering the viceregal thrones in Government House, New Delhi.

Watts wallpapers and textiles were designed for distinguished settings. Still in production, they have in recent years been used extensively in restoration work by the National Trust, in the Houses of Parliament, in colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, and by architects and decorators involved in the conservation of historic buildings. So excellent are the designs in themselves that they have continued to be used privately in houses old and new.

From the firm’s foundation church embroidery has been in the forefront of their work. Numberless altar frontals, banners, hangings and vestments are found in cathedrals, churches, and chapels throughout the world. Watts are still renowned for their high standard of embroidery and needlework, specialising in traditional methods. In 1986, in recognition of their work, the firm was honoured with a Royal Warrant, appointing them ecclesiastical furnishers to Queen Elizabeth II.

Watts has always been a family firm. Bodley was an uncle of George Gilbert Scott the Younger. From 1951, until her death in 2001, Elizabeth Hoare, a granddaughter of George Scott the Younger and great-grand niece of Bodley, was the firm’s Director. Today, her children and now grandchildren continue the business.