British Listed Buildings

Listing Text

1676/0/10014 VICTORIA ROAD
01-SEP-03 Wilkinson's (formerly Binns Department
Store)

II
Shop and furniture store. c.1900. Possibly designed by W Basil Scott (engineer) for Gray, Peverell & Co. Ltd. Partly steel-framed, red brick with faience dressings and slate roofs. 3 storey. Moulded first and second floor faience bands.
Main east front has 6 windows. Ground floor has bronzed metal window frames and a bricked up corner doorway to the right. Above 6 large windows all with 3-light cross casements and flanking rusticated half-pilasters. The single outer windows have flat-headed faience surrounds with keystones and the 4 central inner round-headed windows also have keystones. Above again central 4 small windows have faience surrounds under a broad shallow pediment. Either side are set-back similar windows with faience balustrades to the balconies. Each of these outer windows is topped by a square lantern tower with a lead pyramidal roof. These towers have pilastered corners and circular faces those on the right with clock faces, those on the left with windows.
North front has 25 windows arranged 3:5:17. The ground floor has bronzed metal shop-windows and a bricked up doorway at the right corner. The 3 window section to right has similar fenestration to the east front topped with a faience balustrade. The next 5 window section has 5 tall sash windows in moulded faience surrounds with keystones and above 5 smaller sashes in moulded faience surrounds. Above a deeply moulded brick eaves band with faience brackets and 5 dormer windows with open pediments and sashes. 17 window section has flat roof with low parapet topped with plain faience coping. The fenestration is similar to the 5 window section though the windows are divided into pairs by plain timber panels which hide the steel frame which supports this section of the building, there is a single window at the right and another single window on thw curved corner also flanked by timber pilasters hiding the steel frame.
West front has 5 similar windows, over late C20 shop fronts, again divided by timber pilasters which hide the uprights to the steel-frame.
INTERIOR retains a complete set of original steel upright supporting the steel-frame.
This building is an impressive example of late-Victorian commercial architecture and one of the very earliest examples of a steel-framed building constructed in Britain. It may even be the earliest steel-framed building in Britain which W Basil Scott [engineer] at one time claimed he had constructed in West Hartlepool in 1896, but unfortunately no serious documentary evidence has as yet been uncovered to confirm or deny this claim.

Source: English Heritage

Listed building text is © Crown Copyright. Reproduced under licence: PSI Click-use licence number C2008002006.