Victoria Park Hotel

The Victoria Park Hotel, built around 1900, was designed by Watson and Curry of Newcastle. It is a substantial red brick building with a pebbledashed upper storey, red sandstone dressings, and a graduated slate roof. The hotel has two storeys and an attic, with an eight-bay frontage along Victoria Road and returns of five bays to Oxford Street and three bays to Kendal Street.

The hotel’s design features a chamfered plinth and pilasters supporting basket arches over each bay. The main entrance, in the sixth bay, has a door and side-lights, all within architraves, topped by a swan-neck pediment and cartouche. A stained-glass canopy, supported by cast-iron columns on corniced ashlar piers, covers the entrance, featuring tracery, radial glazing bars, and a torchere finial, with a curved roof and fishscale panels. Bay two has a panelled door and decorative overlight, set in a quoined surround with a bracketed cornice. The remaining bays feature transomed three-light casements, with a continuous cornice running along the roofline.

The first floor has sashes (with glazing bars in their upper frames) within architraves and moulded sills. Bays three and six have mullioned three-light windows flanked by corbelled pilaster strips, while bays one and eight have single sashes; the others incorporate paired sashes. An angled corner to the right features a three-sided window in a similar style. Rectangular fallpipes and rain-water heads, shaped like winged beasts, are also present.

The eaves cornice is followed by half-timbered gables rising over bays three and six, each with a two-light casement and glazing bars. Three dormers with flat roofs are placed between the gables, matching those in bays two and seven. An angled corner rises as an octagonal turret, topped with a corniced parapet and ball finials. A recessed wooden cupola with a weathervane crowns the turret. The main roof is hipped with terracotta ridges and finials, tall corniced ridge stacks, and a front-slope stack between bays seven and eight.

The rear of the hotel, facing a walled garden, has a five-bay loggia with slender cast-iron columns and ornate spandrels, along with five blind basket arches to the right. On the right return, two-light windows are set within round arches, with "BILLIARD ROOM" and "SMOKE ROOM" etched onto the glass. A shaped gable with scrolled supporters, ball finials, and a central stack with a terracotta panel depicting a plant in a vase is also part of the right return. The left return initially mirrors the front, but extends with three later storeys, incorporating a vehicle entrance beneath a keyed, round arch.

The interior includes a dining room with panelled ceilings and ribbons, and a cast-iron spiral staircase leading from the kitchen to the attic. Original plans, dated 1898, show slight differences, notably the absence of the glazed canopy and the three-bay addition to the left return, and a different treatment of the octagonal turret. The drawing is attributed to Watson and Curry, with the application submitted in 1899 by Curry and Davidson.