7 Zetland Road (Webb House)

Webb House: Former Offices of an Iron Company

This building at 7 Zetland Road was designed by Philip Webb in 1881 and 1882, and built in 1889 as offices for an iron company operated by Hugh Bell of Bell Bros. It was altered and extended in 1906 by George Jack, with further alterations carried out subsequently. The building exemplifies the Arts and Crafts classical style.

The structure is constructed from local Scarth Nick sandstone with Linthorpe bricks, employing an iron and steel frame and roof structure, topped with a red clay tile roof. The columns are of Hopton Wood stone from Derbyshire, and the windows are timber sashes.

The building follows a C-plan arrangement with a top-lit atrium within the angle of the plan. It is two storeys in height, with a basement and attic, presenting a symmetrical main façade to the north facing Zetland Road. The ground floor comprises three bays while the attic also has three bays, but the first floor and basement extend to seven bays. A ground-floor sill band, prominent first-floor cornice, and attic parapet with concave-sided gables articulate the elevations.

The raised ground floor features a heavily-moulded arcade with pierced spandrels, rising from slender hexagonal pilasters with trumpet capitals and narrow impost strings. The pillars flanking the central entrance are enriched with shields bearing raised lettering reading 'B 1891' and 'BB'. The entrance itself is deeply recessed behind a round-headed opening beyond the outer arch and is reached by nine stone steps. It comprises panelled double doors beneath a mullioned-and-transomed fanlight. The steps are overlooked by 15-pane sash windows set in splayed reveals, while the risers contain glass bricks which light the basement. The flanking bays each contain a recessed, shallow-canted three-light window with 18-pane fixed lights and similar pilasters at the angles, with stepped sills. The basement is of random-bond brickwork, its windows deeply recessed behind grilles within surrounds featuring stepped segment vaults.

Above the first floor runs a dentilled cornice-band. The first floor itself displays 10-pane fixed-light windows in the end bays, the right-hand bay incorporating a louvre in its top light. The central section comprises a colonnade of five bays with moulded bases and waterleaf capitals, with 15-pane sash windows between them. Above this rises a deep, bracketed cornice. The attic is rendered and topped with moulded stone copings. Each bay contains a two-light mullioned sash window of eight panes per light, recessed within a round-headed opening with blind tympana. Each window is flanked by buttresses with scrolled ramped tops. Between the bays and at either end are square rainwater openings with surrounds. Rendered end stacks and an off-centre ridge stack with corbelled brick tops, together with coped side gables featuring kneelers, are visible.

The south rear façade comprises eight bays. The basement is of brick in English Garden Wall bond, while the upper portions are roughcast rendered with stone sill bands. The basement contains nine irregularly-spaced segment-headed windows, mostly with iron grilles, the left two being set lower. The right-hand bay is recessed and has a modern door beneath a recessed segmental head. The ground floor features a stepped sill band and a seven-bay round-headed arcade of slender pilasters, within which are recessed segment-headed windows (altered in bays two to five, while bays one, six and seven retain 15-pane sash windows). Bay eight lacks these features and has a blocked square surround. A dentilled first-floor sill band spans the arcade. The first floor displays an eight-bay segmental arcade on corbel imposts with similarly recessed sash windows, though those in bays five and eight are blind. The attic is set back above a slender sill band, with 12-pane sashes except for bay four, which is blind, and bay eight, which has a blocked oculus. Brick corbelled chimney stacks are visible left-of-centre at the ridge, with a further stack set back in a rear gable of the front range to the right.

Internally, the principal plan of a central hallway and stair survives, with glazed timber panels overlooking from the landings. However, the room plans have been altered.

The entrance leads to a barrel-vaulted lobby with a glazed partition and doors accessing the stair hall. The stair hall is top-lit and retains the original staircase featuring a clustered-column newel, ramped and channelled timber handrail, and iron balustrades in Webb's signature trellis pattern. The woodblock treads are thought to remain beneath the modern carpet, and some original skirtings survive. Most glazed partitions have been replaced with larger-paned glazing, though the first-floor landing partition is believed to retain its original lower timber panels.

Parquet floors are thought to survive beneath modern coverings. Original timber mouldings remain in several locations, including the arch imposts and rails in the stair hall, and the sill and chair rail in the west office on the ground floor, along with skirting and dado in this room's lobby. Plaster cornices survive in places, with some possibly remaining above suspended ceilings. Sash windows have been shortened in bedrooms.

The full basement retains most of its original plan and openings with stopped rounded jambs. A secondary stair between the first and second floors survives, featuring a closed string, channelled handrail, and acorn finials to most newels. Features thought to survive in the first-floor offices include a shouldered-arched alcove, dado panelling, cornicing, bookcase cupboards, and a fireplace with over-mantel. The glazed roof of the stair hall has been replaced, but remains supported by the original slender steel trusses with a basket-arched lower chord, which matches an arched recess in the end wall.

The building has been converted to flats.