Borough Engineering Services Department (II) is a Grade II listed building in the Gateshead local planning authority area, England. First listed on 13 January 1983. Library.
Borough Engineering Services Department (II)
- WRENN ID
- vast-vestry-claret
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Gateshead
- Constituency
- Gateshead Central and Whickham MP: Mark Ferguson (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 13 January 1983
- Type
- Library
- Address
- Borough Engineering Services Department (II), Swinburne Street
- OS grid reference
- NZ 255 634
- Coordinates
- 54.96467, -1.60307
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The former Public Library, built in 1885 by John Johnstone, is now the Borough Engineering Services Department. It is designed in an extravagant neo-baroque style and constructed from ashlar with a Welsh slate roof. The building has two storeys and an attic, featuring five bays. The central bay projects under a shaped, pedimented gable that includes round-arched attic windows. Flanking the central bay are broken serpentine pediments with round windows, urn finials, and carved swags. Urns are placed on the parapet at both ends and between the gables.
The building has heavy entablatures on both floors, supported by end pilasters and paired pilasters between the windows on the first floor. There are carved friezes, and the first-floor windows are flat arched, with the central tripartite window breaking the pediment of the entrance, which is supported by two heavy carved brackets. The ground floor features round-arched openings with archivolts, keystones adorned with masks, and impost strings, along with nook shafts at the door. The ground floor is rusticated with sunk apron panels.
This building is included partly for its group interest with the other municipal buildings on Swinburne Street-West Street.
Local climate
Borough Engineering Services Department (II) receives an average of 790 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 57% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 94% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 27 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 70% of listed buildings. Of these, 16 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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Nearby listed buildings
- Borough Engineering Department (III)
- Borough Engineering Services Department (I)
- Town Hall, Ancillary Buildings and Former Police Station to Rear
- Clock Tower in Forecourt to West of Town Hall
- Borough Housing Department
- Railway Bridge of Former York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway
- Former Lloyds Bank, Gateshead
- The Central Public House
- Post Office
- Public Convenience at South End of Approach Span to New Tyne Bridge