3-017-209 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Heathfield House, near Birmingham, the residence of James Watt, 1865. View of '...the last residence of James Watt, Heathfield House, where he died, in 1819...the tower of his burial-place, Handsworth Church, is within sight of the house where he passed the closing years of his studious and useful life. Though in the vicinity of Birmingham, Heathfield House has all the character of a country gentleman's mansion. The estate is small; but the plantations, lawns, and walks, laid out by James Watt himself, are designed with great skill and taste. The present owner, Mr. J. W. Gibson Watt, takes care to preserve everything connected with the memory of the great engineer and practical philosopher who formerly resided there. Even the tools and the lathe in his private workshop are left just where the hand of James Watt last touched them, covered with the dust of forty-five years. The trees overhanging the pool were planted by the same hand'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.