Description

MIDDLESBROUGH CORPORATION ROAD, NZ 4920 SE south side.

9/19 Town Hall & Municipal Buildings (formerly 17.7.68 listed as Albert Road) G.V. II* Town hall and Municipal Buildings, 1883/89 by G.G. Hoskins (Darlington). Statues by W. Margeston (Chelsea). Sandstone ashlar. Lakeland slate roofs. Municipal buildings on 4 sides of courtyard, town hall adjoins north side, fronting onto Corporation Road. French Gothic style; Domestic Revival style courtyard elevations. l-storey town hall has 8-bay centre; 2-storey and attic, l-bay slightly-projecting end pavilions, and central 2-bay flat-roofed porch, all with basements. Porch flanked by stairs, with arcaded balustrades, leading to Caernarvon-headed dooways in returns. Pointed 3-light windows to front; enriched octagonal buttresses between bays, and clasping at angles, whose pyramidal caps rise above balustraded parapet. Town hall has statues representing music, painting, literature and commerce, in canopied niches on offsets of buttresses between tall geometric-pattern traceried windows, in centre. Enriched panelled band below sills. Corbelled cornice and blind arcaded mock parapet. Round-headed basement windows, recessed behind railings in porch and centre. Rose window, flanked by blind plate-traceried oculi, in crocketed gable over middle 2 bays; flanking buttress pinnacles. Enriched gabled dormers over 2nd and 7th bays. Steeply-pitched roof has half-hipped, louvred vent dormers, and central fancy iron octagonal ridge lantern with spire. Pavilions have octagonal clasping buttresses with pinnacles, 3 conjoined sash windows and enriched band between floors. 3-bay basements have segmental-Caernarvon-headed windows and renewed doors. Similar cornice, mock parapet and central gabled attic dormer with sash window, flanked by Lombard frieze. French pavilion roofs with fancy iron balustrades. Pointed sash windows generally have moulded heads, nook shafts with stiff-leaf capitals, and battered sills. Mostly boarded doors, in similar surrounds with chamfered reveals. Each return has 2-bay crocketed-gabled centre, and similar flanking pavilions. Central gabled porch up 9 steps; similar first-floor sash windows and rose window. Right return has St. George-and-Dragon sculpture in niche above porch; and 3-stage clock tower rising from roof of centre, with similar buttresses. Louvred windows, clock faces with enriched spandrels, arcaded parapet and spire enriched with pinnacles, gablets, bands and ball finial. Similar gabled porches, with enriched 2-leaf iron gates, link returns to municipal buildings. 2-storey municipal buildings have similar detailing and pavilions at 4 angles. 9-bay south face has central enriched canted oriel with geometric-pattern tracery. Similar oriels in pavilions on west face. Similar gates to courtyard entrances in east and west faces. 4th bay of east face partly obscured by bridge/link to late C20 civic centre. Courtyard elevations have mullioned-and-transomed windows. Geometric-pattern traceried 4-light staircase windows at ends and canted oriel in middle of south range. INTERIOR: town hall has wood trefoil-headed dado panelling. West gallery and circle with panelled fronts. Double hammerbeam roof with turned struts to curved lower braces. Compound wall shafts. Sculptured dragons holding shields, fixed to lower hammerposts. Ceiled above collars with wood panelling. Traceried panelled organ case, on stage. South entrance hall in muncipal buildings has patterned mosaic floor, paired doorways with stilted-segmental heads on round responds with stiff-leaf capitals, and geometric-panelled ceiling. Dogleg staircase with scrolled iron balustrade and moulded wood handrail.

Listing NGR: NZ4960820334

External Links

• Wikidata Q17551818

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