Details
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
