Milburn House

Milburn House is an office block dating from 1902-1905, designed by Oliver, Leeson and Wood. It is constructed of dark red granite at basement level and entrances, rusticated sandstone ashlar at ground floor level, and brick with ashlar dressings above, with a Welsh slate roof featuring stone gable copings. The building has a triangular plan and includes three light wells, built in a Free Baroque style. It has a basement, five storeys, and attics, with thirteen bays. A tower-like first bay of plain brick and ashlar bands incorporates a full-height pilaster and a banded gable chimney. The basement steps down to the slope at the eighth bay, which contains a double door and fanlight within a hollow-chamfered arched reveal in an Ionic doorcase. Similar arches are present in the fourth and twelfth bays, housing round-headed windows. Sash windows are found in the other basement bays. A ground-floor cornice supports three-storey stone-mullioned-and-transomed canted oriels; intermediate windows on the first and second floors have keyed elliptical brick arches, while the third floor has flat stone lintels, all with sash windows, projecting stone sills, and upper glazing bars. A third-floor cornice is followed by a fourth (attic) storey with stilted Diocletian windows with drip moulds above the canted bays and elliptical-headed windows elsewhere. A top cornice and console bracketed high gables, above the canted bays, contain stone-mullioned-and-transomed windows in aedicules. Dormers are incorporated into the high-pitched roof, with paired sash windows. A rounded corner section on the left features five bays under a turret. The rear elevation, facing The Side, comprises twenty wide bays, stepping up a steep slope with varying numbers of floors, four entrances, and one bay containing a large sundial. Adjacent to the sundial bay is a niche housing a bust of Admiral Collingwood and an inscription commemorating his birth in 1748 in a house on the site. Internally, the building contains high-quality wood, bevelled glass, and a circular balustrade to the principal lift well featuring heraldic glass by Laidler of Newcastle, which faces a light well. Low-relief panels in Arts and Crafts painted-leather style are found in the Dean Street entrance hall, along with much original detail and Art Nouveau tiling, later overpainted.