Customs House

The Customs House is a Grade II listed building located on North Street in Middlesbrough. It was built in 1836 by G. Burlison from Darlington as a coal exchange and hotel, with a mid-19th century rear extension. The building served as a Customs House from 1881 until around 1960 and is now a community centre. It is constructed of brick, with the north and east sides faced in sandstone ashlar, featuring banded rustication on the ground floor. The roof is made of Welsh slate with a rendered stack, while the rear extension has felt slates.

Designed in the Greek Revival style, the Customs House is two storeys high and has a three-by-three bay layout defined by giant pilasters. The entrance front on the east side features a central set of renewed panelled double doors, an overlight, and five-pane sidelights, all framed by a doorcase with fluted Doric columns and antae. Each bay contains two sash windows with glazing bars. The building has a chamfered plinth, sill bands on the ground floor, panelled aprons below the first-floor windows, and an entablature between the floors. A flag pole is positioned in the middle of the first floor, passing through the cornice. The shallow parapet is slightly raised and panelled over the middle bay, and the roof is shallow-pitched with hipped and gabled sections, featuring a transverse ridge stack.

The right return of the building mirrors the entrance front but has a window in place of the central door. There are three-panel double doors with an overlight leading up four steps at the right end. The one-storey rear extension has an altered interior that retains assembly rooms on the ground and first floors at the north end. These rooms have wood door architraves, and the first-floor ceiling features deep double-recessed panels with coving and dentil cornices, supported by a panelled wood tie beam with short panelled queen posts adorned with egg-and-dart mouldings. The former cottages adjoining the south side are not of special interest.