Dock Clock Tower

The Dock Clock Tower is a water and clock tower built around 1870, possibly designed by Philip Webb. It was originally used as a water tower for accumulators or reservoirs that maintained hydraulic pressure for dockside cranes and gates, and it also served as a navigational aid on the River Tees. The structure is made of red engineering brick, with red sandstone and terracotta decorations, topped with a Welsh slate roof on the clock tower.

The tower is four stories high and has three bays, supporting a two-stage clock tower. The entrance front faces south and features a moulded plinth and a central porch that slightly projects, which has a renewed boarded door and fanlight that is now boarded up. The front also includes moulded imposts, keystones, and a shaped moulded cornice. The windows are blind in the end bays and round-headed on the third floor, set in four-storey round-headed recesses with shaped keystones beneath a continuous hoodmould. The altered casements have moulded sills and panelled aprons. Above, there is an entablature with fluted console brackets in the frieze, below a parapet with balustraded panels and raised pedestals between the bays and at the corners.

The square clock tower features ogee-stop-chamfered angles, short angle buttresses with inverted scrolled brackets, and round-headed doorways on the east and west faces of the otherwise plain lower stage. A modillioned cornice separates the two stages. The second stage has keyed oculi that hold clock faces on three sides, along with a frieze, dentil cornice, and lunettes. At the top, there is a turned post finial on a short chamfered pyramidal spire, which has sprockets at the eaves. The returns of the water tower have similar recessed windows, and the rear is similar to the entrance front, featuring a blind doorway. The back of the clock tower displays patterned brickwork in a blind oculus.

Inside, the tower retains two large cast iron tanks that once held the water used to provide hydraulic pressure for the lock gates and other dock machinery. At the time of the last survey, the building was disused and in a dilapidated state. A mid-20th century brick and concrete one-storey extension to the east is not considered of special interest.