Borough Social Services Area Office

SUNDERLAND

NZ3957SE SAINT THOMAS' STREET 920-1/18/209 (South side) No.4 Borough Social Services Area Office

GV II

Formerly known as: River Wear Commission Offices ST THOMAS' STREET. River Wear Commissioners' offices, now Borough Social Services' Area office. 1907. By John Hall. Scottish red granite, rock-faced basement and polished doorcase; Durham sandstone ashlar. Slate roof. Free Baroque style. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and basement, 7 windows. Basement windows in outer bays. Ground floor has banded rustication. Central bay has wrought-iron gates to internal steps up to double panelled door. Rusticated entrance surround has open segmental pediment hood on Tuscan pilasters and big scroll brackets; big key cartouche with carved pair of dividers. 2-storey oriel above has top segmental pediment. Outer pairs of bays project under open segmental pediments. Windows with vertical glazing bars in double-keyed architraves except basement triple keys. Roof parapet has raised bracketed panels over outer pediments. Right return to John Street 2:2:2 bays in similar style. INTERIOR: partly inspected. Alabaster and marble archway from entrance to oak-panelled hall and stair-well with oak columns, Tuscan on ground floor and Ionic above, with moulded entablatures. Open-well stair and gallery with ramped wide grip handrail on turned balusters; close string with laurel-wreath pulvinated frieze. Panelled doors on both levels have architrave surrounds with pulvinated frieze and cornice. First-floor board room has moulded panels with raised fields, pilasters with carved swags, carved entablature, bolection-moulded marble fire surrounds, segmental-arched ceiling with bands of rich stucco decoration. A building which represents the considerable history of the management of the Wear. The Commission was set up in 1717. (Corfe T: The Buildings of Sunderland 1814-1914: Newcastle upon Tyne: 1983-: 31; Corfe T: Sunderland A Short History: Newcastle upon Tyne: 1973-: 49,50; Milburn GE and Miller ST: Sundrland River, Town and People: Sunderland: 1988-: 158, 167 NOTE 32).

Listing NGR: NZ3984157035