I READ with interest of the renovations at the Ruskin Rooms and look forward to their completion.

Richard Harding Watt’s Knutsford buildings are a precious cultural asset and should be cherished.

As with many of his buildings, the Ruskin Rooms is an amalgam of sources and influences.

It is not widely known that the tower section was inspired by the towers of the Premonstratensian Abbey at Middleburg in Holland’s Zealand province.

The attribution of the green, tiled dome that caps the tower is slightly more problematic. My current guess, readers may know better, is that it originally topped the great dome of the Manchester Royal Infirmary which used to stand in Piccadilly. Watt’s office looked onto the Infirmary and we know he had access to its constituent parts when it was demolished in the early years of the 20th century; the temple lodge up on Legh Road is one such piece.

Stephen Smith Hale Barns