Exchange Buildings

Exchange Buildings is an office block located at No. 9 Lombard Street, No. 16 Queen Street, and Nos. 6-10 King Street in Newcastle upon Tyne, built around 1861-1862 by architect Parnell. The building is a rectangular block featuring a large central light well, with a basement and four storeys, plus a five-storey central section. It has a facade arranged in a pattern of 3:5:3 bays across three sections of 10 bays.

Constructed from sandstone ashlar with a Welsh slate roof, the building has a shallow central porch that includes steps leading up to a panelled double door and an overlight, all set within a surround of panelled pilasters and a keyed arch flanked by pilasters. The high plinth supports paired Tuscan columns and an entablature. Above the porch, a tripartite window is topped with a coped balcony featuring Ionic columns and an entablature that breaks forward under a segmental pediment. The second-floor tripartite window has segmental heads and a central key under a pediment, with a shallow balcony.

The rusticated ground floor has round-headed windows, with those in the second bays from the ends flanked by tall narrow windows set in pilasters, which have paired brackets supporting a balustraded balcony on the first floor. The first-floor window surrounds are Ionic and topped with segmental pediments, while the floor above mirrors this treatment in the central bay. All windows are sashes, with architraves on those not in classical surrounds. The first-floor windows feature balustraded aprons and flanking pilasters, while the second-floor windows have segmental heads with keyed cornices. The third-floor windows in the centre section are round-headed, while those in the outer bays are square, all beneath prominent modillioned cornices on long brackets. The centre section has a top cornice above simpler windows, and the attics feature architraves on the windows, except for the central Venetian window, all set beneath alternate pediments with an intermediate balustraded parapet and mace finials.

Historically, the site was made available following a disastrous fire, as noted by F. W. Dendy in "The six Newcastle chares destroyed by the fire of 1854."