Railway Station With Shops, Offices And Two Bridges

This is a railway station with shops and offices, constructed between 1873 and 1877 by W. Peachey, with engineering input from Cudworth, for the North Eastern Railway Company. The station is located on Zetland Road, Middlesbrough, and includes numbers 5, 6, and 7 Exchange Place. Significant damage occurred in 1942 due to enemy action, particularly to the train shed and platform buildings.

The building is built of dressed Blaxter stone, with Lakeland and Welsh slate roofs, and incorporates iron and glass platform canopies and bridges. The station’s booking halls, platforms, and other features were designed to be raised above the surrounding area, with the station forecourt situated on the roof of number 8 Exchange Place. Platforms extend across Albert Bridge, over Exchange Place.

The architectural style is Gothic. The main booking hall is a single-storey structure of five bays, flanked by lower, recessed wings of ten bays on the left and seven bays on the right. The central opening of the booking hall has been altered, featuring a straight wood beam and three pointed overlights within moulded surrounds. Mid-20th century windows replace original fanlights, and doorways retain moulded pointed and round-headed details with carved capitals on nook shafts and carved stop-chamfered hoodmoulds. A deep, chamfered plinth runs along the base. A central roundel displays the date 1877. The building features two slightly projecting, corbelled and gabled half-dormers with plate tracery in moulded surrounds, topped by blind quatrefoils and ornate finials, all beneath a Lombard frieze, moulded cornice, and pierced parapet. The steeply pitched hipped roof includes end stacks. One-bay returns demonstrate similar doorways, although the left return is concealed by a mid-20th century extension. The wings have renewed segment-headed windows, arranged alternately single and paired in the left wing and stepped in the right wing. A canted projecting left end bay has round-headed windows and a hipped roof. A two-storey projecting gabled right end bay includes an external stack flanked by pointed sash windows. Details include hoodmoulds, bracketed eaves cornices, and transverse ridge stacks.

A two-storey block of shops and offices fronts Exchange Place and has a pointed arcaded ground floor with altered doors and windows. The first floor features pointed sash windows, paired in the middle bays, and three gabled half-dormers with similar windows, all set under hoodmoulds.

An adjoining single-span girder bridge, supported by two rows of twelve columns with moulded caps and bases and broad fluted shaft rings, crosses the area. Applied lettering reads "ALBERT N.E.R. BRIDGE" on the girders below geometric-patterned parapets. The north parapet is flanked by short piers with raised lettering: “N.E.R.” and “1874” in enriched panels. A similar, smaller bridge spans a pedestrian subway at the west end of the platforms.

The platforms retain their original glazed canopies constructed on scissor-braced trusses, with scrolled brackets and decorative columns, paired on the south platform. Inside the main booking hall, a patterned polychrome-tiled band runs above the windows, and a false hammerbeam roof is present, lacking hammer posts. The roof features shaped ends to the hammerbeams and braces, arched-braced collars supporting kingposts with arched struts. Iron tie rods connect opposite hammerbeams. A mid-20th century four-storey office building detracts from the original station building and forecourt.