Entrance Gateway To Pickering Park And Adjoining Pickering Rest Homes

The entrance gateway to Pickering Park and the adjoining Pickering Rest Homes is a park gateway and old people's homes, dated 1909 and designed by JH Hirst, City Architect. It features cast-iron gates with wrought-iron decoration, and the almshouses are constructed from brick with ashlar dressings and plain tile roofs. The gateway includes a pair of square openwork cast-iron gatepiers topped with cornices and wrought-iron finials, flanking a central pair of scroll-top iron gates. On either side are railings with smaller openwork piers and a segment-headed gate under a crest. Beyond this, there are three sections of lower railing leading to a round-arched gate with a crest.

Flanking the gateway are blocks of six almshouses set at a slight angle, each single storey with a six-window range. They have a plinth and three coped square ridge stacks. The centre features a parapeted triple bay with a central triangular pediment, below which is a shaped panel inscribed "Pickering Rest Homes." There are two close boarded doors flanked by four-light stone mullioned glazing bar windows. Beyond this, a loggia has two round-arched openings covering two two-light windows and two doors. Further along, there are two doors flanked by single projecting through-eaves dormers with massive coped gables and four-light mullioned windows. At either end, there is a round-arched opening covering a two-light window and door.