Summary
A former Head Post Office of 1878, by James Williams of the Office of Works in Baroque style of red brick with buff sandstone dressings, with early-C20 alterations.
Reasons for Designation
Exchange House, Middlesbrough, a former Head Post Office of 1878, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* it is a good example of a Head Post Office building with considerable visual enrichment and its original sorting office range by James Williams, the first Surveyor for the erection of post offices;
* it retains good quality finishes and decorative detailing internally, some of which are replacements matching original details;
* alterations to the interior plan form (in particular the 1913 changes to the second floor and attic) reflect the development of the post office as a building type; notably the growth in telephony, which increased the number of female employees.
Historic interest:
* it reflects the rapid growth of Middlesbrough, a planned settlement founded in 1830 and incorporated as a municipal borough in 1853, which became a leading C19 and C20 industrial centre.
History
In 1877 a deputation, including the MPs Henry Bolckow, Joseph Whitwell Pease and Isaac Lowthian Bell travelled from Middlesbrough to London to meet the Postmaster General, and put to him the town’s case for better postal provision. Consequently, a site for a new post office was acquired, and advertisements for tenders for the building contract appeared in The Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough on 22 October 1877, and work was soon underway. Exchange House was begun in 1878 and opened on 17 September 1879 as Middlesbrough’s head post office.
The design and construction of post offices, due to the institution’s role as a government-run service, was organised by the Office of Works in London from 1858. This building was designed by James Williams (1824-1892), who from 1859 to 1884 was the first Surveyor for the erection of post offices. The first phase included the administrative and public spaces (in the south-eastern range overlooking Exchange Square), and the sorting office (in its two-storey, gabled rear range extending as far as School Croft).
The building was perennially undersized, as the business grew rapidly. Between 1902 and 1913 the attic was enlarged with the present mansard roof and front dormers. Then in 1913 (the year after the Post Office’s responsibility extended to include the entire national telephone service), an extension was added, designed by Charles Wilkinson, head architect of the north branch of the post office division of the Office of Works. This stood to the north-west of the sorting office, fronting School Croft and replacing the earlier toilet and stair blocks on the sorting office’s west side, as well as all the former rear parts of the adjacent office building called Post Office Chambers, of which only the front range remained. This new extension had its own stair tower in the north-west corner but did not extend all the way to Zetland Place. Instead, it returned to the south west, giving a façade set back from Zetland Place, but facing onto it. The space in front of this, accessed from Zetland Place, formed a new covered loading yard for the sorting office, whose footprint had been doubled by the new building. The eastern outshut of the sorting office was enlarged as a stair tower. At the same time, a new lift was inserted in the north-west corner of the original Exchange Square range, and the original public office (accessed from the eastern entrance off Exchange Square) was enlarged towards the entrance. The attic of this range was repurposed as the Telephone Room, and the second floor was largely given over to separate cloakrooms, retiring rooms and lavatories for the female telephonists.
Further enlargement took place in 1926, designed by Henry Edward Treharne Rees. This new, neo-Georgian wing replaced Post Office Chambers on Exchange Square and returned along Zetland Place, but with a vehicle entrance (with decorative iron gates) accessing the yard behind, and a ramp down to the basement. A larger lift and stair tower on the corner of Zetland Place and School Croft replaced the stair tower of the 1913 range. The public office in the original Exchange Square range was extended rearwards into the former sorting office, and the rest of the former sorting office was given over to the telephone exchange, which also occupied the ground floor of the 1913 range. The upper floors of the original Exchange Square range were also given over to communications apparatus, and the former female facilities here were reallocated to male workers. The new range was largely offices for the postmaster and engineers and their support staff, with the second floor on Zetland Place occupied by the facilities for the female staff working in the exchange. It had a stair tower in the south-east corner, accessing the original front range, and the stone stair of the original front range was removed and the western lobby altered (although the altered decorative scheme matched the original details). The tiled, terrazzo and woodblock floors in the original ranges also mostly date from 1926, as does the woodblock floor in the ground floor of the 1913 range.
The post office closed around 1980, and in the early 1980s it was acquired by Middlesbrough Council when the A66 bypass was built close to the front of the building; the adjoining building to the south-east was demolished, and a new stair tower added on this façade. In 1984 it was occupied by Cleveland County Archives, latterly Teesside Archives. The archives left in 2021, and the building is currently (2024) empty.
The design of the building (for example, the inclusion of facilities for female workers on the second floor of the original range in 1913), reflects that the employees working there were not universally male. The Post Office first employed women after taking over telegraphic services in 1870 (following the Telegraph Act of 1869, and making them the first female Civil Service employees) and by 1897 29,306 women were on the payroll, making them just over 20% of the Post Office workforce nationally. Consequently, facilities for women, including toilets, cloakrooms and areas for taking breaks, were designed into new buildings. Working areas were often segregated, with women’s work usually overseen by female supervisors; their work was considered valuable, partly due to their skills and partly because they were paid significantly less than men.
Details
A former Head Post Office, 1878, by James Williams of the Office of Works in Baroque style, with early-C20 alterations and a 1980s staircase extension. Subsequently used as archives, but unoccupied in 2024.
MATERIALS: red brick, buff sandstone, slate roofs, timber windows.
PLAN: T-plan, with a front range facing Exchange Square of three storeys with a basement and a mansard attic, and a narrower rear sorting office wing of two storeys, extending to School Croft. The front range has a 1980s staircase extension on its right return.
EXTERIOR: the symmetrical façade faces south-west and is of four bays, in stone to the ground floor and basement, and brick with stone dressings to the upper floors, with bands between the floors and a heavy top entablature.
The ground floor is rusticated, over an ashlar basement with blocked openings. Staff (left) and public entrances in the end bays, up four steps, with original three-panel double doors and overlights, in fluted coved surrounds, under enriched bracketed, cornice hoods with Greek-key friezes and enriched soffits, against a fluted lintel-band. Between the entrances are two sash windows with moulded sills and surrounds under similar bracketed friezes, and panelled aprons below the sills.
The upper floors are in Flemish bond brickwork, with four sash windows to each (without glazing bars), in architraves. To the first floor, these are under bracketed pediments (segmental in the centre bays) with panelled friezes, balustraded aprons and a moulded sill string. The second-floor sill band is guilloche-moulded. The heavy cornice is bracketed with guttae. Above the entablature is a balustraded parapet with flagpole. The early-C20 mansard roof has corniced flat-roofed dormers with paired casements with glazing bars. Circular metal conical-roofed ridge ventilator. Corniced stacks at right and on left front slope. Seven-bay left extension is not of special interest. Set back at the right is the plain 1980s staircase extension, which is in keeping.
The south-east façade is blind, with darker brickwork to the early-C20 mansard roof, above a moulded cornice. At the right it is obscured by the tall, narrow 1980s staircase extension. Set back further to the right is the south-east façade of the two-storey original rear range (sorting office). This is also of brick in Flemish bond, with four bays of tall ground-floor and shorter first-floor sash windows, all with glazing bars, stone sills and shallow segmental rubbed-brick lintels. In front is a covered former basement area. To the right, a projecting stair outshut has a rendered façade. The ridge has two conical roof vents. Modern vents pierce to roof at the right.
The north-east façade to School Croft is also in Flemish bond, with similar windows and small basement lights (blocked). The outshut at the left has an arched doorway with stone steps. The gable is treated as a pediment with stone string course, and is in darker brick, with a ridge chimneystack. Early-C20 rear extensions (to the right) are not of special interest.
The rear façade of the front range is in darker brick, with mostly original sash windows, and a large, corniced eaves stack.
INTERIOR: the interior plan form is altered, reflecting post-office developments, but relatively little-altered since that use ceased. The interior retains elements of the original decorative detailing, including doors and architraves, skirting and cornicing, and some restoration, with some areas concealed by suspended ceilings. Flooring finishes of tiles, terrazzo and woodblock mostly date from 1926, but the stone flags in the basement are thought to be original.
