Former North Shields Municipal Complex, Tynemouth, North Tyneside

Summary

Former North Shields Municipal Complex comprising former town hall, police station, Board of Guardians, mechanics institute, post office and Tynemouth County Borough Council Offices, 1837-1894, to designs by John and Benjamin Green, John Dobson and the Borough Surveyors. Neo-Tudor, Elizabethan and Gothic style.

Description

MATERIALS: coursed squared sandstone, ashlar dressings, Welsh and Lakeland slate roof, stone copings, rendered chimneys. They are built in coursed squared tooled sandstone with ashlar dressings to moulded string bands doors and windows surrounds, roof coping and chimneys.

PLAN: the building comprises several elements which are collectively U-shaped on plan and built abutting the former former Wesleyan Reformed Methodist church, with an L-shaped extension within an internal square courtyard.

EXTERIOR: the former North Shields Municipal Complex is positioned on a prominent street end with elevations to Howard Street, Saville Street and Norfolk Street. The buildings are built in coursed and tooled sandstone with ashlar dressings to moulded string bands, parapets, door and windows surrounds, roof coping and chimneys. It is of two and three storeys, with a partial basement and attics, and built in several design phases.

On the corner of Howard Street and Saville Street is the first construction phase building of 1836-1837, designed by John and Benjamin Green as the former Poor Law Guardians Offices. It is of two storeys with Dutch gables and three bays to each street elevation, with a double pitched and hipped roof with truncated chimneys. Facing Howard Street is the abutting four-bay, two-storey building of 1866-1868, designed by the borough surveyor as the former post office and offices. It has a hipped gable end and pitched roof with five tall octagonal ashlar chimney stacks. Extending along Saville Street is a six-bay, two-storey building of 1844-1845, built as the former town hall and police station, which has a pitched roof and early-C21 square stair block to the rear. The three-storey corner building to Saville Street and Norfolk Street (extending and forming part of the Saville Street elevation) of 1845-1846 (with mid-C19 alterations), built as the Mechanics Institute and Museum (later police court), has a pitched roof, with two pairs of dormers to each side, and four chimneys (two octagonal ashlar stacks and two with crenelated copings). Adjoining the former Mechanics Institute on Norfolk Street is a three-bay, three-storey building of 1865. It was designed by the borough surveyor as the former fire engine house and has a pitched roof and one chimney. External (and internal) alterations by the borough surveyors have taken place across the interconnected buildings between the 1850s, 1860s, 1890s and C20.

The main elevation to Howard Street is of two storeys with partial attics, and seven bays. The three right-hand bays of 1837 (former Board of Guardians Offices), have two Dutch shaped gables with moulded ashlar kneelers and quoins and a recessed central bay beneath a bracketed and moulded parapet. A central mid-C20 moulded and keystoned doorway has a stone mullion overlight with four-pane window casements and a late-C20 double door. To each side is an early-C21 shop frontage with a shallow ashlar stallriser. On the first floor there are three stone cross-frame windows with hoodmoulds containing multi-pane casement windows. The shaped gables above have blind pointed-arch attic lights. To the left the two-storey, four-bay range of 1866-1868 (former post office and offices) now forms part of the theatre and offices known as The Exchange (2022). It has moulded battlemented parapets between four octagonal chimney stacks and three moulded string bands which form hood moulds over the ground- and first-floor windows and run below the first-floor window sills. The first bay has a six-light mullion and transom window with arched top lights on the ground floor, with a similar ten-light window in the third bay. On the first floor the first, third and fourth bays have arched-top, three-light mullion windows with one-over-one pane sashes. The second bay projects slightly and has a gable rising above the height of the parapet. On the ground floor is a moulded, four-pointed arch doorway with plank and batten double doors and an adjacent moulded four-pointed arch window frame with traceried two-light arched window. On the first floor is a central mullion and transom window with reticulated tracery and at attic level is an ogee arched ventilation window with a trefoil head below a finialled gable apex. The fourth bay has a four-pointed archway to a covered passage with double iron gates and a C19 castellated top-grille, (which provides entry to the inner courtyard, theatre reception and shop, bar and offices).

The right return, to Saville Street, is of two and three-storeys and ten bays. The three left bays, of 1837 (former Board of Guardians Offices), is similar to the three bays on Howard Street. The left two bays have an early-C21 shop frontage and two first-floor stone cross frame windows with hoodmoulds, below a bracketed and moulded eaves cornice. The third bay projects slightly and has a dutch gable with a ball finial at its apex. It has a mid-C20 stone door surround matching that to Howard Street, now converted to a window. The first floor has a similar cross-frame window with hoodmould, with a blind pointed-arch attic light. To the right is the two-storey, six-bay former town hall and police station and at the right-hand end is the three-storey former Mechanics Institute and Museum with a homogenised mid-C19 re-fronting (which stylistically matches the borough surveyors design to Howard Street). The fourth to ninth bays have battlemented and moulded parapets and four-moulded string bands to each floor, forming hoodmoulds to windows and doors. The fourth bay has a stepped four-pointed arch doorway with plank and batten double doors. To the right on the ground floor are five stone window surrounds containing two-over-two casement windows , the window in the seventh bay formerly the police station entrance doorway with a mullioned overlight. The first floor has six windows with stone mullion and transom frames of four lights with arched top lights. The three-storey tenth bay is gabled with framing octagonal ashlar stacks, a large, central oriel window on the first and second floors with stone mullion and transom frames with arched top lights, and four two-light mullion windows on the ground floor.

The elevation to Norfolk Street has five bays of two storeys and an attic and three bays of three storeys, with pitched, slate roofs and two ridge stacks with crenelated copings. The quoined buttress corner to Norfolk Street and Saville Street marks the re-fronting of the Saville Street elevation in the mid-C19. The first to fifth bays are in the Elizabethan style by John Dobson (1844-1845), with a chamfered plinth and ashlar dressings to windows and doors and a stair bay to the fifth bay with a lower roofline. On the ground floor, the second bay has a chamfered four-centred arched doorway with steps up to a deeply recessed plank and batten double door with a stone tracery toplight of five pointed-arch lights, and the fifth bay has a similar, smaller doorway with a plank and batten door. the first, third and fourth bays have stone cross-frame windows with quoined surrounds on the ground floor. The first floor has four large stone cross-frame windows of six lights with a two-light stone mullion stair window to the right. The attic storey has two large gabled dormers with bargeboards and timber cross-frame casement windows. Adjoining to the right is a three-bay building of 1865 (the former Fire Engine House by Borough Surveyor James Robson). The ground floor has a wide two-centred arch with giant keystone, double doors and an adjacent pedestrian doorway with a giant keystone, decorative timber door and etched overlight, with two square-headed windows to the right. The first and second floors both have central, three-light stone mullion windows flanked by a square-headed window, all with assymetrical two-over-one pane horned sashes.

The central courtyard is paved. The lower courtyard elevations are obscured by the modern extension. The rear of the Fire Engine House is of red brick with three second-floor windows, with two upper windows to Dobson's adjoining stair block. Projecting from the rear elevation of the former police station and town hall is a crenelated early-C21 square stair block. The rear elevation of the former post office has two ground-floor windows and three upper-floor windows, with an early-C21 two-storey glazed window panel. The ground floor has a Second World War stained glass window commemorating Tommy Brown, the fifteen-year old NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institute) hero.

INTERIOR: the municipal complex is now two separate but linked buildings identified as the Saville Exchange (offices – 2022) and Exchange Theatre (theatre and offices - 2022). They contain late-C19 to early-C20 five-panel doors set into heavily moulded and square-stopped door architraves; moulded window surrounds with panelled soffits, jambs and aprons which retain secondary double casement glazed windows; deep moulded skirting boards; moulded picture rails and moulded cornicing. Some ornamented late-C19 radiators remain.

FORMER POOR LAW GUARDIANS OFFICES, TOWN HALL, POLICE STATION, MECHANICS INSTITUTE, MUSEUM AND BOROUGH OFFICES: this building is now known as the Saville Exchange (2022). It is entered via three doorways from Norfolk Street and Saville Street and also an internal courtyard entrance, with a shop front on Howard Street .

The left-hand entrance on Norfolk Street has a lobby with an 1840s four-centred arch door surround and an early-C20 glazed and wooden porch screen. A spine corridor now has three office suites to the left and one to the right, with an early-C21 stair block and lavatories (the corridor partitioned by safety and security doors). At the far end is a modern double-height reception area with glazing facing into the internal courtyard. The stone doorways on the left (southern) side of the spine corridor and in the reception area form part of the historic fabric and plan form of the former police station. The corridor also contains a wide, late-C19 doorway with a stone chamfered lintel resting on corbels and chamfered jambs which relates to the redevelopment of the police station between 1893-1894. In the reception area is a simple, chamfered mid-C19 doorway from John Dobson’s original design for the 1844-1845 police station. There is also a late-C19 door to the south leading to the stairwell and entrance from Saville Street. A modern glazed double door opens into the central courtyard and another modern door opens into the former Poor Law Guardians offices.

The fifth-bay entrance on Norfolk Street opens into John Dobson's finely carved stair block with a matching four-centred arch door surround and a curved ashlar stone stair with recessed and ramped handrail with scrolled and foliated handrail ends, which rises to the second floor and terminates with moulded capping. The second floor has an exposed timber ceiling of three beams on moulded corbels with exposed joists, a plank ceiling and a central ventilation roundel. The stair block gives access to both upper floors of the former fire engine house (now offices) and the northern end of the second-floor hall (the former museum, later borough surveyors office). The second-floor hall is of six bays with two dormers to each side in the second and fifth bays, a bay window to the southern end of the room and a two-over-two sash window to the northern end. The ceiling also contains attic hatches and two blind three-light attic windows. The roof has stop-chamfered jointed arch-braced trusses supported on moulded posts, with a plank ceiling and four-centred moulded arches on corbels between the bays supporting the lower purlins. The room contains a stone chamfered and moulded fire surround with a shaped opening containing a cast-iron arched firebox. The former Fire Station House has one room on the first floor with a blocked, square-stopped moulded arch marking the entrance to now demolished rear extensions behind the fire engine house.

The entrance on Saville Street (now secondary entrance – 2022) enters a lobby with late-C19 moulded and dentillated cornicing and a glazed and panelled porch screen containing foliated etched glass with the Old Tynemouth Borough coat of arms and the latin motto ‘messis ab altis’. Beyond is a stairwell with an ornamented and bordered aggregate polished floor and C19 bull-nosed stone stairs, with a moulded handrail with barley twist wrought iron balustrades, up to the first floor. The first floor has a shorter spine corridor which retains a C19 square, decorative stained-glass overlight set in a margined wooden frame. Two doors, one a stone moulded and chamfer stopped round-arched doorway, enter the former town hall and justice court hall (now office - 2022). The hall has moulded and dentillated cornicing supporting a moulded coffered, arched ceiling and three moulded roundels (containing water sprinkler systems). A north-west doorway enters an ante-chamber (now with a kitchen – 2022). The ante-chamber retains a C19 hagioscope window overlooking the town hall entrance from Saville Street and two further plain doorways into the former Poor Law Guardians Hall (office – 2022) which has a moulded beamed ceiling. At the eastern end of the spine corridor, overlooking Norfolk Street, is the former police court (now workspace – 2022) which has substantial moulded wooden ceiling beams, with corbelled cross beams supported on ceiling brackets with dagger tracery, and wooden shafted buttresses and brackets (ornamented with bell capitals or corbels). The bay window to Saville Street has a secondary glazed and wooden panelled screen ornamented with bell capital shafts and glazed pointed lights and spandrels.

FORMER POST OFFICE BUILDING: this building is now known as The Exchange with a theatre and first-floor offices. The main entrance is from Howard Street, with a glazed theatre entrance, reception and shop accessed from the covered passage. The Howard Street doorway opens into a hallway with a stone stair (with an open string ballusters and moulded handrail) and five doors either side. An end door enters the theatre foyer with a meeting room on the right (containing the stained glass window commemorating Tommy Brown), the auditorium on the left (in the adjacent former United Methodist Church building), and doorways to the modern courtyard extension (bar and café – 2022). The first floor has a central landing with three office suites and a boiler room extending to the left and a subdivided former hall room, providing office space and a secondary reception area to the auditorium’s balcony.

History

In 1796 John Wright (1730-1806), lawyer and property developer, purchased 50 acres of land between Norfolk Street and Newcastle Street from Frederick Howard, fifth Earl of Carlisle, for the development of the New Town of North Shields. He developed several elegant streets and it is suggested Northumberland Place, Northumberland Square and Howard Street were originally part of a high-status street scheme Wright and his sons devised and implemented before selling freehold buildings plots to individuals. Northumberland Place and the southern end of Howard Street below Saville Street were developed first with housing and public buildings, and between 1810 and 1816 Northumberland Square began development as a residential garden square. Further housing, public buildings and churches were built on Howard Street and Northumberland Square through the latter half of the C19.

In 1837 John (1787-1852) and Benjamin Green (1811-1858) were commissioned to design a Tynemouth Poor Law Union Board of Guardians offices on a corner site at the junction of Howard Street and Saville Street, with a Savings Bank included. The main entrance was on Saville Street with a passage from Howard Street to the rear, and a first-floor boardroom. The land on the north-west and north east sides of the corner building (facing Saville Street, Howard Street and Norfolk Street) was then developed in several stages between the 1840s and 1860s to become North Shields Town Hall, Justice Court and Police Station, the Mechanics Institute and Museum, and the post office and borough offices for Tynemouth County Borough Council (incorporated as a municipal borough in 1849), largely financed by local benefactor Joseph Laing.

The new town hall and police station was built between 1844 and 1845 to designs by John Dobson, with a six-bay elevation facing Saville Street to the right of the Poor Law Offices. The main entrance was shared by both councillors and prisoners with access through to the station charge room, superintendent’s room, five prison cells on the ground floor and a main stair rising to the combined Town Hall and Justice Court above. Work began on John Dobson’s design for an adjoining building facing Norfolk Street containing the relocated Savings Bank, Mechanics Institute and Library, museum and offices between 1845 and 1846. The ground floor contained a suite of rooms and a stone staircase up to two substantial hall rooms: a Mechanics Institute on the first floor (until it relocated across the road between 1857 and 1858) and an exhibition space and museum on the second floor. It is speculated Messrs Robson of North Shields executed both designs. These two buildings remained separate buildings until around 1865.

In the latter half of the C19 substantive changes and additions were made to the buildings by the Tynemouth Borough Surveyors. Around the late 1850s the Saville Street elevation for the town hall and police station was refronted with John Dobson’s elevation to Norfolk Street and the fine stair block retained. In 1865 the Borough surveyor, Mr Robson, designed a new police court at right angles to the old court (in the former first-floor Mechanics Institute) with access punched through to enable ready communication between both county and police courts via a spine corridor. A flight of steps from the newly created ground-floor police office rose through to the centre of the court to conduct the prisoners up to face the bench. The old court was retained for the town council, with adjoining apartments between and the second floor (former museum) becoming the borough surveyor offices. A new stone Fire Engine House was built at the right-hand end of the Norfolk Street elevation, with an alleyway to the Corporation Yard, with a fire engine house on the ground floor and upper-floor residences for the fire inspector and officer. The final stage of development took place between 1866 and 1868 when the vacant land to the north-west was developed as the new post office premises, with county court offices and other businesses on the floors above. The Electric and International Company moved to the same premises in 1869 and the Inland Revenue subsequently occupied the upper floors. By 1887 the post office had relocated to new premises, and the county court and inland revenue relocated in 1893.

Between 1893 and 1894 further substantial reconfigurations were designed by the Borough Engineer and Surveyor M J Smillie (executed by Messrs Johnson and son), and the altered plan form is shown on the 1896 town plan (surveyed 1894-1895). The principal object of the scheme was to have the whole of the official borough staff quartered within the building in easy reach of each other. The rear yard, formerly divided, was brought into one use and separate entrances provided to the police station and town hall. The police station was rearranged with eight new cells arranged into two blocks of four and the ground level lowered by six inches to bring it down to street level. On the first floor the council chamber was reorientated with the construction of an ante-chamber between the council and magistrates, and a new committee room and magistrates’ parlour all accessed off the first-floor spine corridor. The former post office building was allocated as the Rate Collectors and Borough Surveyor's offices.

In 1904 the Tynemouth Guardians Hall and offices (the three-by-three bay corner building to Saville Street and Howard Street) became shop premises, with extended shop frontages to Howard and Saville Street by the 1930s. By 1938 the Borough Council had purchased the adjacent United Methodist Church and the buildings were amalgamated together as the Borough Treasurers Offices. Across the C20 alterations were made to the buildings and they ceased to function in a municipal capacity after North Tyneside Council was formed in 1974. The building was adapted in 2001 as a theatre and multiple office suites. The late-C19 police cell blocks were demolished and new extensions added within the courtyard including a crenellated stair block. In 2002 a stained glass window designed by Marilyn O'Keefe was inserted into The Exchange to commemorate Tommy Brown, a fifteen-year old Second World War Navy, Army and Air Force Institute (NAAFI) hero who helped retrieve code books from the stricken German U-boat U559, which helped to crack the Enigma code.

Reasons for Listing

The former North Shields Municipal Complex is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* a fine complex of considerable civic presence, using good-quality materials and designed in phases by nationally recognised architects John and Benjamin Green and John Dobson, and the Borough Surveyors;

* Intricately planned to provide separate municipal functions within the building, with careful consideration given to the requirements of the various parts;

* the high-quality internal detailing, fixtures and fittings to the stairwells and key rooms distinguish the high status, function and character of the town hall, justice court, police court, Board of Guardians and museum.

Historic interest:

* it forms an important civic presence on Howard Street as part of the development of the New Town of North Shields.

External Links

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.