Cleveland Buildings

Cleveland Buildings

A pair of houses constructed about 1835, now converted to offices.

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

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

On Cleveland Street, the main house comprises five bays, three storeys and a basement. The painted quoins are deeply chamfered. The entrance is located within the fourth bay and features a renewed six-panel door and an overlight with margin lights set within a fluted Tuscan doorcase with panelled reveals. The windows contain eight-over-eight sashes with painted wedge lintels and painted sill strings. A circular blue plaque attached to the right of the entrance door records: "H W F 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, with a transverse ridge stack and a further stack on the right pitch.

Attached to the left of the main house is a later two-storey extension of three bays. Two entrance doors are present: the third bay contains a six-panel door and overlight with margin lights in a plain surround beneath a painted wedge lintel, while between the first and second bays there is a lower entrance with a six-panel door in a plain surround with an overlight below a narrow lintel. A circular grey plaque between bays two and three records: "1880-1968 Sir William Crosthwaite JP Ld'H Civic Leader and Tug Pioneer". The elevation features windows similar in style to the main house with sills but no sill string. The first-floor wedge lintels are obscured by a timber fascia. The pitched slate roof has a single end stack.

The right return on Lower Gosford Street has two bays with similar style windows to the principal elevation but without sill strings. A 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, and a similar opening has been relocated at the junction with the modern extension.

The interior contains significant features of note. The ground floor has panelled shutters and six-panelled doors in wooden architraves. The right ground-floor room features a foliage-enriched ceiling cornice and central acanthus roundel, with elliptical-headed alcoves flanking an Adam-style marble chimney piece recovered from the Cunard liner Aquitania. Similar arches lead to the former staircase hall and the corresponding ground-floor room. An original timber dog-leg staircase remains in situ with ornate newel posts, handrail and balusters. The rear 1960s extension has an Adam-style ceiling. One of the first-floor rooms contains very ornate plaster cornices and ceiling roundels of similar style to the ground floor, an arched alcove with panelled intrados, panelled shutters and window soffits. The surviving upper part of a second timber staircase retains partial remains of a stick balustrade and handrail, and bears historic wallpaper and graffiti, leading to two upper rooms. The plain cellar has plastered walls, large stone flags to the floor and some blocked openings that formerly admitted light from street level. 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 at a slightly lower level, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling.