Sunderland And South Shields Water Company Offices, With Steps, Walls And Railings

SUNDERLAND

NZ3956NE JOHN STREET 920-1/20/130 No.29 10/11/78 Sunderland and South Shields Water Company Offices with steps, walls & railings (Formerly Listed as: JOHN STREET (East side) No.29)

GV II

Water company offices with steps, dwarf walls and railings attached. 1907. By W & TR Milburn. Penrith red sandstone ashlar, Lakeland slate roof with ashlar chimneys. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys and basement. 5x8 windows. John Street elevation has end bays projecting. Steps up to panelled door in Ionic porch at left with segmental pediment, ground floor has aprons to round-headed windows with patterned glazing bars in upper lights and elaborate keystones supporting first-floor band; blind central bay. Projecting end bays have sill string to sashes with glazing bars in corniced architraves, on which rest the aprons of smaller second-floor sashes also with glazing bars and architraves. Inner bays have Tuscan attached columns flanking sashes with alternate pediments below smaller second-floor windows. Entablature with dentilled cornice and blocking course breaks forward over end bays. Hipped roof has corniced transverse chimneys behind the blocking course. Right return to Borough Road has projecting pair of bays at left, forming corner pavilion with projection on John Street, and slightly projecting pair at right. Steps up to big Ionic porch at right with segmental pediment. On ground floor, one large window in left projection, 4 in centre and one to left of porch. Other windows like those on John Street with in addition giant swagged canted pilasters, the central wider and with cartouche, to 4 central bays. INTERIOR: Baroque open-well stair from John Street entrance has reception desk fitted in stairwell, panelled doors in architraves,and elaborately glazed domed well light on shallow drum with high relief swags and intertwined dolphins. Panelled board room has Ionic columns and pilasters, stucco wall panels, richly moulded beams to panelled ceiling, elaborate chimneypiece and overmantel. RAILINGS AND DWARF WALLS: flanking steps to John Street entrance, continuing to left in front of adjacent house (No.27 (qv)) and to right as far as Borough Road, continuing to the steps to that entrance. Spike-headed wrought-iron railings with principals of patterned panels. (Corfe T: The Buildings of Sunderland 1814-1914.: Newcastle upon Tyne: 1983-: 30).

Listing NGR: NZ3987156835