West Lodge And Attached Screen Wall And Memorial In Albert Park

West Lodge and an attached screen wall and memorial stand at the principal entrance to Albert Park, Middlesbrough. The lodge, wall, and memorial date from 1866 and were designed by C.J. Adams. The building is constructed from red brick with blue brick and sandstone dressings, and has Welsh and Lakeland slate roofs with pierced iron ridge crestings and finials.

The lodge is asymmetrical and incorporates both Gothic and classical architectural details. It is 1½ storeys and two bays wide. A double-chamfered plinth rises to three steps leading to a right-hand four-panel door, set within a segment-headed, hollow-chamfered surround. A plaque displaying the arms of the Middlesbrough Corporation sits above the door. Below the eaves is a moulded brick frieze that continues around the corners of the building. A projecting left-hand gabled cross wing features a stone, one-storey canted bay window. The octagonal pilasters of the bay window have individually-carved foliate capitals, framing trefoil-headed sashes under chamfered round heads. Angle water shoots are fixed to foliate brackets, below a bracketed battered parapet with wrought iron cresting. Battered sills are present throughout. A pair of segment-headed first-floor sash windows, within hollow-chamfered surrounds, are located under a plaque displaying the arms of H.W.F. Bolckow in the gable. Other details include chamfered gable coping, gabled kneelers, and a steeply-pitched hipped and gabled roof with bands of shaped slates and embattled transverse ridge stacks.

A gabled wall monument in the screen wall to the right commemorates the park being presented to the people of Middlesbrough by Henry William Ferdinand Bolckow, and records its opening by Prince Arthur in 1868. It was erected in 1901. A further gabled red sandstone monument on the right of the screen wall bears the park’s original dedication of 1868 on its reverse side; it originally contained a niche, under a carved foliate band, intended to house a bust of Bolckow, which is now located in the Dorman Memorial Museum, along with a brass plate. A two-bay left return also features similar windows.

The interior includes an open-well staircase with turned balusters and chamfered square newels, and panelled doors in moulded surrounds. The lodge was disused and dilapidated at the time of resurvey. A mid-20th century one-storey extension to the north-west of the building is not of special architectural or historic interest. The buildings are included on the list due to their historical associations.