11 and 13 Zetland Road

Summary

Former printing works and offices built for H G Reid of the Northern Daily Gazette. Constructed in two separate phases: 13 Zetland Road was built between 1865 and 1871 by W H Blessley in the Italianate style; 11 Zetland Road was constructed between 1888 and 1893 to designs by R Lofthouse in the Northern Renaissance style.

Reasons for Designation

11 and 13 Zetland Road are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* designed by known and respected architects, they are good examples of high-quality Victorian design, which express sophistication and prosperity;
* they illustrate the shifting architectural styles in commercial design between the 1860s and 1880s from Italianate style to the Northern Renaissance style;
* they are prominent buildings that make a valuable contribution to the Victorian townscape along with nearby listed commercial buildings on Zetland Road, Exchange Square and Exchange Place, and the railway station.

Historic interest:

* as the purpose-built offices of Middlesbrough’s first daily newspaper, the North Eastern Daily Gazette, which was a leading regional newspaper in Teesside, and their association with the newspaper’s founder Sir Hugh Gilzean Reid, a journalist and later Liberal Member of Parliament;
* the buildings form part of Middlesbrough Victorian financial and commercial quarter, an area which was integral to the town’s economic success and rapid growth in the latter half of the C19, becoming the world’s leading producer of pig iron and later one of the country’s major steel centres.

History

Middlesbrough owes its existence to the industrial revolution and a demand for coal and steel. Its growth from a small farming community of around 25 people in 1801 to one of over 90,000 inhabitants by the end of the C19 has been described as unprecedented in British urban history.

The growth was spearheaded by a group of Quaker businessmen headed by Joseph Pease of Darlington who speculatively purchased the Middlesbrough estate, realising the potential of the area, planned the town alongside a new port, and extending the Stockton and Darlington Railway to the banks of the Tees in 1828.

The new town was developed in the 1830s in a grid pattern in an area north of the station and centred around the ‘Market Square’, now the location of the Old Town Hall and Clock Tower (both 1846 and Grade II listed). Further expansion came in the 1850s with the discovery of substantial ironstone deposits in the Cleveland Hills, exploited by the industrialist Henry Bolckow (1806-1878) and John Vaughan (1799-1868) who constructed the town’s first iron foundry. The town was incorporated in 1853, and by 1865 Middlesbrough had become the world’s largest producer of iron, generating a third of Britain’s output. The switch to steel saw Middlesbrough as one of Britain’s leading steel production centres. The area around the station became the focus of Middlesbrough’s financial and commercial district, undergoing significant development in 1870s.

Following the Second World War, Middlesbrough suffered from industrial decline and large parts of the old town were cleared; the Royal Exchange, once a focal point for the financial and corporate life of the town, was demolished to make way for the elevated A66 road in 1985.

13 Zetland Road was built as offices and a printworks between 1865 and 1871 for Scottish journalist and founder of the Northern Daily Gazette, Hugh Gilzean Reid. It was the first halfpenny evening paper in the country and gained increasing success after Thomas Purvis Ritzema became its commercial manager in 1876, with Reid retaining management of the paper’s literary output. The paper changed its name to the North Eastern Daily Gazette in 1881, which it retained until 1936 when it became The Gazette.

The architect of 13 Zetland Road, William Henry Blessley (1841-1936), designed numerous public and commercial buildings in Middlesbrough. He was born in Highgate, Middlesex, the son of an independent minister. Although little is known about the early years of his profession, he is recorded as practising as an architect and surveyor in Middlesbrough by 1871. He was responsible for a number of the buildings in Exchange Place and Exchange Square as well as Zetland Road, which formed the commercial hub around the former Royal Exchange. He was also responsible for many buildings in the vicinity of Middlesbrough, including the Albert Park public house (about 1868), a Quaker meeting house and classrooms in Dunning Road (1873), St Peter, Lower East Street (1874), Linthorpe Community Primary School (1874), Christ Church, Eston (1883-1884), and the apse of St Hilda, Market Place (1890).

The newspaper office at 13 Zetland Street was extended onto the adjacent plot (11 Zetland Road) between 1888 and 1893 by Roger Lofthouse (1845-1867), a Middlesbrough architect who practised with sons James Alfred and Thomas Ashton Lofthouse. Lofthouse was born in Wensleydale, North Yorkshire but set up practice in Middlesbrough around 1875. He worked as a surveyor for Middlesbrough Town Council and was also the Ecclesiastical Surveyor for the Diocese of York. His other work included the former Trustees Savings Bank on Albert Road (Grade II) and a children’s hospital and lodge in Linthorpe.

The Daily Gazette moved to new offices in 1938 on Borough Road.

Details

Former printing works and offices built for H G Reid of the Northern Daily Gazette. Constructed in two separate phases: 13 Zetland Road was built between 1865 and 1871 by W H Blessley in the Italianate style; 11 Zetland Road was constructed between 1888 and 1893 to designs by R Lofthouse in the Northern Renaissance style.

MATERIALS: brick, faced with carved sandstone ashlar with Welsh slate roofs.

PLAN: both buildings occupy rectangular plots between Zetland Rd and Brunswick Street with the principal elevations facing north onto Zetland Road.

EXTERIOR: both are four storeys and basements, with attics to 11 Zetland Road.

13 Zetland Road: has two wide bays. The ground floor has a four-bay colonnaded centre with alternately round and square columns; the round with quasi-Composite capitals. The first three bays have stall risers with glazing above. The altered entrance door to the right end bay has an overlight. Above is a frieze and bracketed cornice. The building has slightly projecting rusticated quoins which are carried up to the third-floor sills and then continue to cornice level by panelled pilasters. There are paired round-headed windows on the first and second floors, and Caernarvon-headed third-floor windows, all slightly recessed behind pilasters, which are panelled and plain. There are enriched archivolts and lintels, keyed on the second and third floors, supported by pilasters. The sill band on the second floor is panelled, whilst there is a dentilled sill string on the third floor. All window glazing has been replaced. The eaves cornice is bracketed and has a shallow straight parapet.

11 Zetland Road: is taller than the adjacent number 13 and has four bays with a gabled centre and three-bay ground floor. There are steps up to both end panelled doors with overlights; the left now replaced by a grille. The doors have chamfered jambs and enriched pilaster-and-continuous-entablature surrounds. The wide middle bay has a basket-headed three-light moulded mullioned-and-transomed window with altered glazing. Above is a fluted-keyed archivolt and richly carved spandrels with escutcheons; that at the right is dated 1893. The three basement windows are blocked. The upper floors have moulded cross windows in enriched surrounds that are quasi-Composite, but for Roman Doric on the third floor. There is a foliate scroll frieze above the first-floor windows. The entablature is enriched beneath a panelled straight parapet with ball finials at the ends. At attic level there is a shaped gable, with similar acroteria, with paired casement windows in fluted pilaster-and-entablature surrounds with festoons in the frieze.

Brunswick Street: this elevation which faces south is in three parts, all of which are gabled; the left is three bays and four storeys, the central stair towers section is of one bay and five storeys, whilst to the right, is four bays over five storeys. They are plain brick facades in stretcher bond in the first two parts and English bond to the right. The left four-bay section was constructed in 1893 and features sash windows within segmental arched openings and stone sills. The left and central part are C20 extensions, also with segmental arched openings containing sashes.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

59816

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Page, W, The Victoria History of the County of York: North Riding, (1923), 268-273
Pevsner, N, Grenville, J, The Buildings of England: Yorkshire: The North Riding, (2023)

Other
Middlesbrough MBC, 2008, ‘Middlesbrough Historic Quarter Conservation Area Character Appraisal and Management Plan’, unpublished document
British Newspaper Archive, ‘Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough’, accessed via https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/titles/daily-gazette-for-middlesbrough
‘Middlesbrough Improvements’ Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, Saturday 7 January 1871, p 2
‘Obituary, R Lofthouse’, The Builder, 3 Aug 1901 p 115
Johnson, M, 2021, Ironopolis: The Architecture of Middlesbrough, Amberley Publishing pp 30-31
Teesside Archives: Building control plans 1892: CB/M/PL/8/1713

End of official list entry

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