Old Customs House And Adjoining Wings

The Old Customs House and adjoining wings, located on Victoria Terrace in Hartlepool, is a building originally constructed as the Ship Hotel around 1844. It was converted into a Customs House in 1880 and later used for commercial purposes in 1911. The building is made of cream Pease brick with painted stone dressings and has Welsh slate roofs.

It stands three storeys high with a five-bay ground floor and three-bay upper floors, framed by large clasping pilasters and a pedimented gable. The central entrance features four-panelled double doors and an overlight with margin lights and glazing bars, sheltered by a porch supported by two square columns and an entablature. There are pilasters between the ground-floor sash windows, although the lower parts of the sashes in the left-hand bays are missing glazing bars. The first-floor sashes have glazing bars, with the central window flanked by pilasters. The second-floor windows have late 20th-century glazing and are set above plain recessed aprons. All windows have sills and lintels that continue as bands along the façade.

The building has four slightly projecting tall lateral stacks on the left and right returns. There are also slightly setback two-storey, single-bay wings on both sides, with the left wing being taller. Both wings feature clasping pilasters and sash windows with glazing bars, although the ground floors have been altered. The left-hand wing has a continuous timber eaves fascia with paired brackets for the gutters, and its six-bay return has sash windows with glazing bars, along with a similar doorway and porch. The right-hand wing has a five-bay return with a similar doorway, porch, and sash windows.

There are mid to late 20th-century red brick extensions at the rear that are not of interest. The building was disused at the time of the survey.