Post Office And Railings

This is a general post office, now a local delivery office, built in 1903 by Sir Henry Tanner. It is located on West Sunniside, Sunderland.

The building is constructed of sandstone ashlar with red granite architraves to the main entrance, and has a graduated Lakeland slate roof with ashlar chimneys and a copper ridge. The prominent cast-iron railings punctuate projecting sections and extend around the right return.

The main block is three storeys high, with a 1:2:3x1:3:1 window arrangement. To the left is a single-storey sorting office with a 3:3:3:3 window arrangement. The right-hand section features a panelled door set within an architrave under a bracketed cornice. Mullioned and transomed windows are located to the left, and bracketed first-floor oriels sit in the outer bays. An arched recess displays the words "POST OFFICE" in low relief, with sill strings continuing from the plinths of pilasters. The three-bay gabled section is linked by a bracketed cornice that breaks forward, defining bays with Tuscan pilasters and surmounted by a corniced blocking course with small pedimented arches above the windows. The second floor features three pairs of windows under a bracketed cornice. The shaped gable incorporates side consoles and a raised top panel framing an arched window surround with Corinthian columns and a high pediment. A one-bay gabled section to the left is in a similar style, with a three-light window in a first-floor oriel. A two-bay section is set back between the gabled bays, featuring an arcaded ground floor with a panelled door to the left and a window in a recess to the right, with two-light windows above. The right first-floor bay is blank. Steeply pitched roofs run back from the gables and incorporate chimneys above the eaves, along with a high domed ridge lantern.

The right return, facing a public garden, has a simpler centre section complemented by pilastered outer sections, featuring Tuscan order on the ground floor and Corinthian order on the first. The top floor includes lunettes between large consoles on a dentilled first-floor cornice. A one-storey block behind the main office has keyed architraves to round-arched windows in the left portion. The external bays break forward under pediments. Three gabled sections are set back, each with three windows; the central one features lunettes in a pedimented, pilastered centre. All windows are topped with a sill string.

The rear of the building, facing Norfolk Street, is mostly a mirror image of the West Sunniside front.