Former Gpo Sorting Office

NZ 5132 11/135

HARTLEPOOL, WHITBY STREET (east side), Nos. 13 and 17 (Former G.P.O. Sorting Office)

(Formerly listed as Nos, 13 and 17 (G.P.O. Sorting Office))

II

General Post Office, now a sorting office. 1898/1900; by Henry Tanner (London). Red brick with buff terracotta and granite dressings. Graduated Lakeland slate roof has 2 stacks. Northern Renaissance style. 2 storeys and attic; 5 bays, divided and bounded by pilasters, those on ground floor brick with terracotta bands, those above quasi-Ionic in terracotta. Roll-moulded plinth. Central panelled double door in granite architrave between rusticated terracotta Ionic engaged columns. Triple overlight with Jacobean detail under console bracketed serpentine pediment with crown and foliage in tympanum. Flanking round-arched windows with pilasters, architraves, patterned spandrels and keystones. 3 grouped windows in Art Nouveau architraves in outer bays. Ground-floor entablature and blocking course. First-floor windows in rusticated architraves with friezes and egg-and-dart cornices, tripartite with central keys and pediments in outer bays. Top modillion cornice and balustraded parapet in front of 3 pedimented dormers in centre bays; outer bays have solid parapets with vase end finials and Diocletian windows in quasi-Corinthian entablatures under scrolled segmental pediments. Returns in similar style with elaborate panelled and carved chimneys. One-storey rear sorting office section.

Listing NGR: NZ5123432521