1 Albert Road

Summary

Bank and manager’s house, 1872-1873 by GG Hoskins of Darlington.

Reasons for Designation

1 Albert Road, constructed in 1872-1873 to designs by GG Hoskins of Darlington, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* a good example of a combined bank and manager’s residence, with the latter appropriately subservient and designed in a more domestic style;
* designed in a striking French Gothic style with imposing principal elevations conveying strength and power; qualities required by a bank to instil confidence in their clients;
* it was designed by GG Hoskins, an architect of note who was also responsible for Middlesbrough’s Town Hall, which utilises similar decorative features;
* the building sits prominently on an important corner site, complemented by the adjacent Middlesbrough Station, which is also designed in Gothic style.

Historic interest:

* it was constructed for Quaker bankers Backhouse & Co who had close connections with the Pease family, considered to be one of the great Quaker industrialist families who played a leading role in philanthropic and humanitarian interests in Victorian Britain;
* built as part of Middlesbrough’s financial and commercial quarter, an area integral to the town’s economic success and rapid growth in the latter half of the C19 as the world’s leading producer of 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.

No 1 Albert Road was built between 1872 and 1873 as the Middlesbrough branch of Backhouse & Company, a bank that had been founded in Darlington in 1774. The Backhouse family were Quakers and had interests in the textile trade as well as in shipping and coal; they also had connections with the Pease family, who are considered to be one of the great Quaker industrialist families who played a leading role in philanthropic and humanitarian interests in Victorian Britain.

The building was designed by the architect GG Hoskins of Darlington (1837-1911) who was also responsible for Middlesbrough Town Hall; the two sharing a number of design features. Hoskins had worked as Clerk of Works for Alfred Waterhouse and became architect to the Backhouse Bank in the 1860s. The builders were Robert Dennett & Co, a firm that specialised in fireproof construction using iron and concrete.

Plans of the building from 1872 indicate an open plan banking hall accessed from Albert Road with counters arranged at right angles to the entrance, with private offices and a strong room behind (west) and offices above (accessed from an entrance from Zetland Road). The manager’s house had a parlour and kitchen (now part of the ground floor public spaces) with a pantry and scullery behind. A separate staircase (no longer extant) led to the drawing room, bathroom, and bedrooms above. The plans also indicate an initial intention to provide the manager’s house with its own entrance from Albert Road, though it is unclear if this was executed.

The building remained in use as a bank, occupied by Barclays and the Yorkshire Bank until the 1980s; it was then sold and converted into a hospitality venue. The ground floor has recently been fully refitted to provide a new bar/restaurant. This included reversing some 1980s additions, blocking some openings, and installing a new mezzanine/gallery space with a similar footprint to the previous raised floor within the banking hall. A new commercial kitchen was installed and there were plaster repairs to the walls and ceilings redecorated.

Details

Bank and manager’s house, 1872-1873 by GG Hoskins of Darlington, with late-C20 and early-C21 alterations.

MATERIALS: constructed in sandstone ashlar, granite colonettes, and Cumberland blue slate roofs.

PLAN: the building occupies an important corner site prominent in views from Exchange Place and Exchange Square. The principal elevation faces east onto Albert Road and Exchange Square, whilst the north elevation faces Zetland Road. The south elevation is overshadowed by the A66 flyover and faces onto Brunswick Street.

EXTERIOR: designed in the French Gothic style.

Albert Road: this elevation has two storeys and four bays, with a slightly-projecting gabled porch in the left end bay. The entrance comprises renewed and partially glazed double doors under a shouldered lintel. Above is a quatrefoil in a pointed overlight, within a surround of four moulded orders on responds and pilasters with carved capitals. The porch is topped by a fleur-de-lys finial. To the right are pointed sash windows, in similar surrounds to the entrance door but of two orders. The sills are battered and enriched, with recessed aprons, and ornate wrought iron grilles on the ground floor. The windows to the first floor are similar but without grilles.

The building has a chamfered plinth, string courses between floors and impost bands; the latter to the ground floor are decorated. There is a bracketed eaves cornice and shallow hexagon-ornamented parapet with moulded copings, flanking two gabled dormers with similar windows, surrounds and finials. The steeply-pitched hipped French pavilion roofs have spirelet finials, and a central half-hipped ventilation gablet.

The former manager's house adjoining to the left is of three storeys and two bays, with the left bay canted over three floors and projecting at the ground floor. The windows are moulded mullioned-and-transoms and there are string courses between the floors. The eaves cornice is corbelled with a roof similar to the attached former bank, featuring three stacks with octagonal shafts in groups of two and three.

Brunswick Street: the former manager’s house has a three-bay left return into Brunswick Street, with the right bay blind, and modern rollers shutters to the ground floor central bay which covers a door inserted through a former window. To the rear is a service yard which contains a heavily modified former coal shed and outdoor toilet range. The south elevation of the former bank is partially obscured by a modern staircase extension and fire escape. At first floor level is a moulded mullioned-and-transomed stair window, positioned to the left of four sashes in moulded surrounds. Above is a moulded eaves cornice and two rectangular stacks with corbelled projecting battered caps.

Zetland Road: this elevation facing north has nine bays and is similar in style to the east elevation, although the two-bay ends project slightly forward. Additionally, the right end bay features an entrance door similar to that on Albert Road. On the first floor the two bay ends have projecting bracketed sills with polished granite nook shafts to the window surrounds, and there is a plain parapet above the central five bays. There are three transverse ridge stacks with ornamented bands and corbelled projecting battered caps.

INTERIOR: although altered, it retains moulded window architraves throughout and a cast-iron fireplace to the former manager’s parlour. The rear room now functions as a commercial kitchen, and C20 panelling is now retained behind modern wall linings. Modern ceilings conceal moulded cornices, whilst a barred strong room door by Chubb of 128 Victoria Street, London, has been retained, though possibly relocated. The entrance from Zetland Road is largely unaltered; the entrance lobby has a geometric tiled floor, ashlar walls and a timber panelled ceiling. Panelled double doors with flanking side-panels and a pointed overlight within a stone arch lead into the hall, which also features a geometric tiled floor beneath a Gothic arch. The hall contains an open string staircase with stone treads and moulded skirting, with heavy newel posts with square-section upper halves and scalloped edges resting upon a twisted stem. The lower newel has lost its decorative cap. There is a heavy mahogany handrail supported on decorative cast-iron balusters. Above the half landing is a tall stair window (currently blocked). The first floor, although knocked through to create a large entertainment space, retains moulded window architraves with panelled skirts and Gothic arches and deeply moulded cornices.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

59677

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
Archaeological Services, Durham University, 2021, ‘Spensley’s Emporium, Albert Road, Middlesbrough, archaeological desk-based assessment’. Unpublished report
Middlesbrough MBC, 2008, ‘Middlesbrough Historic Quarter Conservation Area Character Appraisal and Management Plan’, unpublished document
Midgley, C, 2004, ‘Nichol, Elizabeth Pease (née Elizabeth Pease)’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/55204
Teesside Archives, building control plans: CB/M/PL/8/1880

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