Description:
Thomas William Hammond 1854-1935. Born in Philadelphia of Nottingham emigres, and orphaned at the age of four, he came to England with his younger sister Maria and lived for a short while with his grandparents in Mount Street. In 1868 age 14 he enrolled in the Government School of Art. On the 1871 census he is described as a lace curtain designer, and in 1872 he was awarded the 'Queen's Prize for a Design of a Lace Curtain'. Other prizes followed and in 1877 he was again awarded the Queen's Prize, this time for the design for a damask table Cloth. Hammond was an indefatigable worker, and soon began to use his skills as a draftsman to record aspects of the changing town. He began showing his work at local venues in 1882 and in 1890 exhibited for the first time at the Royal academy. His real hobby was black and white sketching in charcoal. He drew about 350 pictures all together mainly scenes of a Nottingham he knew but which has largely passed away today. Extracted from 'The Changing Face of Tom Hammond's Nottingham' by John Beckett which is the introductory essay in 'A City in the Making Drawings of Tom Hammond'.
Middle Pavement is a short street at the top of Low Pavement and formed a link in the great line of traffic which became so important in the latter part of the eighteenth century; it presents many features of interest. The left shows the quaint old house called the 'Old Postern Gate'. It stood at the corner of Middle Pavement and Drury Hill and occupied the site of the postern which guarded the passage through the wall at this point; when it was pulled down about 1910, considerable remains of a guard chamber, used in connection with this postern, were found to be incorporated in its cellars. It appears to have been built just before the Civil War (that is about 1600) and was known for many years as the 'Bull's Head Inn'. It was a very picturesque building and we miss it sadly.' Image and descriptive text taken from 'Nottingham Past and Present', published in 1926.