Cleveland Buildings

Summary

Pair of houses, constructed about 1835, now offices.

Reasons for Designation

Cleveland Buildings is listed at Grade II for the following principle reasons:

Architectural interest:

* a handsome building and a good example of late-Georgian architecture with an elegant neoclassical elevation;
* dating from the 1830s, it is one of the oldest surviving buildings within Middlesbrough’s Old Town, and formerly located within Middlesbrough’s fashionable residential suburb;
* there is good interior survival of joinery and plasterwork throughout the building and a chimneypiece from the grand ocean liner The Aquitania.

Historic interest

* the home of the ironmasters Henry Bolckow and John Vaughan, through whose enterprise and vision Middlesbrough had become the world’s largest producer of iron by 1865 .

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.

Cleveland Buildings was originally a pair of houses built around 1835 during the early development of the town. The building was once home to the iron masters Henry Bolckow and John Vaughan who had married two sisters. Through the two men’s enterprise and vision that by 1865 Middlesbrough had become the world’s largest producer of iron, generating a third of Britain’s output. Bolckow went on to become the first mayor in 1853 and then its first MP in 1868, whilst Vaughan was mayor in 1855. It is thought the building became offices soon after both Vaughan and Bolckow left the premises in about 1860, Bolckow to nearby Marton Hall and Vaughan to Gunnergate Hall.

The building was extended to the north, possibly during the mid-1850s or early 1860s, and said to have been used as a medical surgery for workers of the Cleveland Salt Company in which Henry Bolckow’s nephew was a board member. Around about this time the lower parts of one of the original two staircases was largely removedand the remaining upper part boarded over; the removed sections were partially reused in the interior of the mid-1850s extension. It is likely that the basement, which appears to have formerly extended out beneath the pavement, was a pre-existing feature in the 1830s and was separately accessed from the outside.

In the C20, Cleveland Buildings was also the offices of the Teesside Towing Company which was founded by Sir William Crosthwaite who was Mayor of Middlesbrough in 1925 and again in 1939 until 1943. The building contains an early-C20 Adam-style marble chimney piece which was recovered from the First Class Drawing Room of the Cunard liner Aquitania, the third of Cunard’s grand ocean liners. It is believed that the fireplace was purchased at auction when the ship was retired and dismantled in Faslane, Scotland in 1950.

The rear extension was constructed in the 1960s.

Details

Pair of houses, constructed about 1835, now offices.

MATERIALS: constructed of brick laid in English garden wall bond and with a painted stone plinth and painted stone dressings. The roof is of Welsh slate. The extension to the north is also in brick in English garden wall bond.

PLAN: the building is rectangular in plan, with the principal elevation facing north-west onto Cleveland Street and the right return (south-west elevation) facing Lower Gosford Street. There are additional extensions to the rear (south-east) and attached to the north-east gable end. The principal entrances are from Cleveland Street.

EXTERIOR: Cleveland Street: the main house has five bays, three storeys and a basement. The painted quoins are deeply chamfered. The entrance, which is located within the fourth bay, has a renewed six-panel door and an overlight with margin lights, within a fluted Tuscan doorcase with panelled reveals. The windows have painted wedge lintels and painted sill strings which contain eight-over-eight sashes.

To the right of the entrance door is a circular blue plaque which records: ‘H W F [sic] BOLCKOW and JOHN VAUGHAN founders of the CLEVELAND IRON TRADE lived here 1841-1860’.

The north-east gable-end is constructed in modern brick in stretcher bond. The roof is shallow-pitched and hipped to the right and has a transverse ridge stack and a further stack on right pitch.

Attached to the left of the main house is a later two storey extension of three bays. There are two entrance doors; the third bay holds a six-panel door and an overlight with margin lights in a plain surround below a painted wedge lintel, whilst between the first and second bay there is a lower entrance containing a six-panel door within a plain surround with an overlight below a narrow lintel. A circular grey plaque is located between bays two and three which reads: ‘1880-1968 SIR WILLIAM CROSTHWAITE JP Ld’H Civic Leader and Tug Pioneer’. The elevation features similar style windows to the main house with sills but no sill string. The wedge lintels to the first floor are obscured by a timber fascia. The pitched slate roof has a single end stack.

Lower Gosford Street: the right return has two bays and features similar style windows to the principal elevation but without sill strings. Further to the right, the 1960s extension of two bays, has been constructed in a sympathetic style to the main house. A blocked circular opening for a clock is located between the first and second floors and first and second bays. It has been relocated in a similar position at the junction with the modern extension.

INTERIOR: the ground floor has panelled shutters and six-panelled doors in wooden architraves. The right ground-floor room has a foliage-enriched ceiling cornice and central acanthus roundel. There are elliptical-headed alcoves, with panelled responds and intrados, flanking an Adam-style marble chimney piece which was recovered from Cunard liner Aquitania. Similar arches lead to the former staircase hall with arch, and into the corresponding ground-floor room. An original timber dog-leg staircases remains insitu, and has ornate newel posts, handrail and balusters. The rear 1960s extension has an Adam-style ceiling. One of the first floor rooms has very ornate plaster cornices and ceiling roundels of similar style to the ground floor and an arched alcove with panelled intrados, in addition to panelled shutters and window soffits. The surviving upper part of a second timber staircases retains the partial remains of a stick balustrade, and a handrail, and has historic wallpaper and grafitti. It leads to two upper rooms. The plain cellar has plastered walls, large stone flaggs to the floor, and some blocked openings formally capturing light from the street level above. Although now blocked by a brick wall, the cellar originally extended beyond the south-west wall of the building below the pavement of Lower Gosford Street; it is set at a slightly lower level and has a barrel-vaulted ceiling.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

59701

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
Johnson, M, 2021, Ironopolis: The Architecture of Middlesbrough, Amberley Publishing pp 12-13

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