Bede Tower

Bede Tower is a villa built in 1851, designed by J and B Green for AJ Moore, the Mayor of Sunderland. At the time of listing, it was being used as a polytechnic building. The structure is made of ashlar stone and features a graduated grey slate roof in the Italianate style.

The building has two storeys, a five-stage tower, and three windows on the front elevation. The north elevation showcases a tower with a plinth and steps leading up to a rusticated porch. This porch has an impost string above an open round-headed arch and a smaller round-headed light on the right side. The entrance features a four-panelled door with a semicircular overlight in a roll-moulded surround. Above, there is a first-floor string with a pierced balustrade leading to a balcony supported by large moulded brackets in front of a keyed round-headed window with impost blocks. The upper stages of the tower have projecting quoins and floor strings, with paired lights on the third stage, a single light on the fourth, and triple stepped lights on the fifth stage, all beneath a prominent modillioned eaves cornice with acroteria. The roof is low-pitched and pyramidal.

To the right, a gabled bay is set back and features prominent quoins above a plinth, with similar jambs to the tripartite ground-floor sashes that have flat stone lintels and stone mullions. There is a small inserted light on the left side, and the first-floor string continues from the tower, leading to three wide lights with flat stone lintels above a blank section.

The right return garden front has projecting jambs and rusticated voussoirs for the ground-floor windows, with an impost string below the architraves of the keyed first-floor windows, which are all four-pane sashes. The second to fourth windows are part of a canted bay with a hipped roof on a gabled projection. The roof features paired eaves brackets and corniced panelled ridge chimneys.

A sports hall has been added to the rear of the building.