Former Midland Bank

Summary

Former bank, 1901 and 1903 by H Barnes and Coates of Hartlepool for York City and County Banking Co Ltd. Formerly listed as the Midland Bank, and also known as Commerce House. Now (2023) refurbished as offices.

Reasons for Designation

The former Midland Bank, 1 Exchange Place is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* designed in Edwardian Baroque style, it features exuberant ornamentation, successfully combining solid polished pink granite on the ground floor with softer sandstone on the upper floors;
* the building’s copper octagonal dome is an impressive and eye-catching feature intended to reflect the wealth and status of the occupying business;
* designed by the architects Barnes and Coates of Hartlepool, with a sumptuously decorated former banking hall, it is perhaps the most accomplished of their works;
* it was carefully designed to exploit a prominent corner location overlooking Exchange Square and Exchange Place, where it forms a group with adjacent listed buildings that together reflect the confidence and wealth of the town in the later C19 and early C20 at the heart of financial and commercial quarter.

Historic interest

* 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.

1 Exchange Place was built for the York City and County Banking Co Ltd between 1901 and 1903 to design by H Barnes and Coates of Hartlepool, with the interior banking hall designed by W and S Wheater of Leeds. The bank was purchased in 1988 by the Teesside and District Chamber of Commerce and Industry and later the North East Chamber of Commerce, before being refurbished as private offices in the early C21.

Details

Former bank, 1901 and 1903 by H Barnes and Coates of Hartlepool for York City and County Banking Co Ltd. Formerly listed as the Midland Bank, and also known as Commerce House. Now refurbished as offices.

MATERIALS: constructed in Aberdeen pink granite on a black granite plinth, with wrought iron grilles to the ground floor and sandstone ashlar to the upper floors and both recessed end bays. Above, is a copper lantern on a flat asphalt roof with brick stacks.

PLAN: the building occupies a prominent corner site, roughly rectangular in plan, with the main entrance facing south onto Exchange Square, and the return elevation facing west onto Exchange Place.

EXTERIOR: designed in the sumptuous Edwardian Baroque style with three storeys and attics.

South elevation: the entrance front to Exchange Square has seven-bays plus a slightly recessed right end bay and a chamfered left-angle bay. There are three steps up to the centrally placed entrance with recessed renewed double doors with a blind fanlight in a keyed rusticated surround; the fanlight has a wrought iron grille. Above, is a blind oculus in an enriched surround with a scroll reading ‘BANK’. This breaks into a tympanum of a keyed open-segmental pediment on consoles enriched with escutcheons. The ground floor has recessed fixed-light windows with short iron grilles and curved aprons. These are flanked by broad rusticated pilasters supporting the entablature which has a renewed sign in the right-hand frieze. Above is a blocking course with balustraded panels below the first-floor windows.

On the first floor the windows feature alternately segmental open-pedimented Roman Ionic surrounds with enriched tympana. An enriched escutcheon dated ‘1904’ sits above the architrave of the first-floor window within the chamfered corner bay. There are eared and shouldered architraves under escutcheons on the second floor. All windows contain casements.

The enriched cornice of the top entablature forms gables over scrolled carved architraves of attic oculi, piercing the frieze in the first, fourth and seventh bays. A balustraded parapet sits above.

The right end bay has three steps up to a part-glazed door with sidelights and a fanlight in a rusticated surround with a carved keystone; above is the lettering: MIDLAND BANK CHAMBERS. Between the ground and first floor is an oval window in an enriched surround, and on the second floor there is an enriched escutcheon.

West elevation: the Exchange Place elevation is a four-bay return similarly styled to the Exchange Square elevation with a slightly recessed left end bay. Within this bay there are four steps up to a recessed entrance above which is a small square headed window topped by a small escutcheon. There are further enriched escutcheons on the first and second floors.

There are three stacks to the flat roof. Above the corner is a shallow octagonal umbrella-domed lantern topped by a ball finial on an enriched flanged stem. The dome has round-headed half-dormers, with similar oculus in each face. There are enriched escutcheons below the windows and at angles, and fleuron roundels below the moulded string course around the lower part of the drum.

There are mid-to-late-C20 rear extensions.

INTERIOR: the banking hall has mosaic floors, wood dado panelling with a carved cornice, an Adam-style plaster frieze with garlands and drops and a geometric-patterned ceiling with fruit-and-flower ribs.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

59715

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 62-63

End of official list entry