Gateshead District Housing Offices

The Gateshead District Housing Offices, built in 1902 by Henry Miller for the Felling Urban District Council, are council offices designed in the Baroque style. The building features rock-faced sandstone with ashlar dressings and quoins, topped with a Welsh slate roof. It is two storeys high with a basement and consists of seven bays, with the outer bays gabled.

A central tower displays the Felling U.D.C. arms within an elaborate pedimented doorcase, which has a double door beneath a fanlight in a keystoned surround, and floral decoration on the soffit. Above the door, a broken open pediment leads to a round-headed window that connects to the eaves cornice. There is a blind stage above this, followed by strings, cornices, and aedicules framing keystoned round windows on all four sides.

The ground floor features lugged architraves, while the first floor has triple-keystoned round heads on the two bays flanking the tower. The projecting gabled bays include two similar ground floor windows and bracketed Venetian windows at the first floor. All windows are fixed lights with top-hung transoms. The aedicules at the gable peaks contain a niche on the left and a fixed light on the right.

Segmental pedimented dormers sit centrally between the tower and gables, which have raised pediments on flat stone coping that end in large consoles. The tower's balustrade is coped and features ball finials, with a tall hipped roof topped by an iron balustrade and flagpole.

Inside, the first floor houses a panelled council chamber that retains two original chimney pieces. Most original doors, door cases, and etched glass in partitions and doors are still present. An elaborate cast iron balustrade surrounds the open well stair, which has a gothic post on the curtail. The stair window, with nine lights, features original stained glass in its mullioned and transomed design.