- Fawcett Street, Sunderland
Fawcett Street is a main street in the city centre of
Sunderland ,Tyne and Wear ,England .History
As Sunderland began to expand in the late 18th century, the industries and working class residents began to encroach on the middle-class properties around the banks of the
River Wear . In 1810, the Bridge Commissioners paid the Fawcett family £500 (£27,167.74 in 2007) for a road (which was to become Fawcett Street) to be taken across their fields inBishopwearmouth , to serve the newWearmouth Bridge and to develop a new middle-class area.In 1814, William Jameson was commissioned to lay out the Fawcett Estate and work began in 1815. By 1840, neighbouring John Street, Frederick Street, all of West Sunniside and some of East Sunniside was constructed and occupied. Public buildings such as the Athenaeum, as well as parks and churches were situated here. William Jameson is commemorated in the name of a
Wetherspoons public house situated on the south-east corner of the street.In 1836, the Bridge Commissioners cut through Building Hill (now in
Mowbray Park ) to form a direct southerly route toStockton-on-Tees from Wearmouth Bridge. This took much of the traffic that had used the oldturnpike through Bishopwearmouth. Fawcett Street thus became a busy thoroughfare and succumbed to commercialisation as retailers moved closer to their potential clientele, first along High Street West, then spilling into Fawcett Street and Bridge Street.After the opening of the Gas Offices at the southern end of the street in 1867, the new
Sunderland station in nearby Union Street in 1879 and the new Binns department store on the street in 1884, the middle-classes began to move south from the Fawcett Estate to the developing suburb ofAshbrooke . Today, most of the city's commercial focus is situated withinThe Bridges , a shopping centre to the west of Fawcett Street, but the street is still the main banking sector of the city.Notable buildings
In order from the north end to the south end, the following notable buildings are situated on Fawcett Street:
=Elephant Tea Rooms [cite web|url=http://www.sunderland.gov.uk/apps/ListedBuildings/lbbuildingdetails.asp?Id=920-1/18/76 |title=Listed Buildings - Number: 920-1/18/76 - Description |publisher=Sunderland City Council |accessdate=2008-08-11] =The Elephant Tea Rooms is a
Grade II listed building . The building was constructed from 1873 to 1877 byFrank Caws for a local tea merchant in theHindu Gothic style, in reference to the tea sold there.
=Lloyds Bank [cite web|url=http://www.sunderland.gov.uk/apps/ListedBuildings/lbbuildingdetails.asp?Id=920-1/18/73 |title=Listed Buildings - Number: 920-1/18/73 - Description |publisher=Sunderland City Council |accessdate=2008-08-11] =The building at 54 Fawcett Street is occupied by
Lloyds TSB . It was constructed in 1890 for Lambton's Bank in thepalazzo style. It is four storeys high and is a Grade II listed building.The exterior is
ashlar with pink granite plinth and columns, a slate roof andcast-iron gates. The rusticated ground floor has high plinths to the Tuscan porches of the outer bays, linked by balustrades in the second and third bays of the east elevation and interrupted by opening to the area in third bay; there are pediments over the pulvinated friezes of the panelled doors. The three central round-headed windows between the attached columns have renewed glazing. The ground floor entablature projects over the porches and supports the recessed first-floor windows with Ionic pilasters and dentilled pediments. There is a sill string to the second-floor casements with Tuscan pilasters; the top has a dentilled entablature and blocking course. TheMansard roof has fivedormer s with round-headed lights under the scrolled pediments. The left return has three bays in similar style to the front; the first bay at the left projects under the Mansard roof and there are tripartite windows in the lower central section.
=Midland Bank [cite web|url=http://www.sunderland.gov.uk/apps/ListedBuildings/lbbuildingdetails.asp?Id=920-1/18/68 |title=Listed Buildings - Number: 920-1/18/68 - Description |publisher=Sunderland City Council |accessdate=2008-08-11] =The building at 14 Fawcett Street is occupied by
Midland Bank , a subsidiary ofHSBC Bank . It was constructed in 1902 and designed by W. B. Brierley ofYork for the York City and County Bank. It is four storeys high and is a Grade II listed building.The ground floor is of grey granite, with ashlar above and a slate roof. Each floor has five windows on the east side and six windows on the south side and there is a canted corner bay; the end and corner bays are banded. The intermediate bays have Corinthian columns with a heavy modillioned cornice to the top entablature which breaks forward at the ends and back at the corners. The south door, now blocked, is on an angle below the oriel with long brackets. The ground floor has a heavy, pulvinated, banded rustication and the windows are deeply recessed below the masked corbels of triple keystones. There are similar keys to the first floor windows in pilasters with entablatures, bracketed pediments, and balustraded balconies. The second floor windows have architraves and bracketed sills.
=Barclays Bank [cite web|url=http://www.sunderland.gov.uk/apps/ListedBuildings/lbbuildingdetails.asp?Id=920-1/18/72 |title=Listed Buildings - Number: 920-1/18/72 - Description |publisher=Sunderland City Council |accessdate=2008-08-11] =The building at 53 Fawcett Street is occupied by
Barclays Bank . It was constructed in 1875 and designed by Austin and Johnson ofNewcastle upon Tyne in the Baroque palazzo style for Woods Bank. It is four storeys high and is a Grade II listed building.The exterior is ashlar with cast-iron balconies and a slate roof. There are renewed doors and semi-circular overlights in the end bays of the rusticated ground floor, with architraves on the impost strings of the keyed round-headed openings; the renewed round-headed windows in the other bays have recessed panelled aprons. There are Corinthian columns above with square
pilaster s at the corners and attached round columns to the intermediate bays, linked by the elaborate first floor cast-iron balconies. The lugged keyed architraves to the first floor sashes, with glazing bars, rise to the floor string between the pilasters and to the elliptical-headed second floor sashes on moulded sills and aprons. The large top entablature has a pulvinated frieze and modillioned cornice. The hipped roof has side consoles toOeil-de-Boeuf dormers in the central and end bays and taller segment headed dormers between. The right return has three bays in similar style without doors and with three segment headed dormers, and four set-back bays with a rusticated ground floor having doors in the outer bays and triple-keyed ground floor tripartite windows. There is plainer treatment to the upper floors with cornices, pediments and keyed architraves to various windows.
=National Westminster Bank [cite web|url=http://www.sunderland.gov.uk/apps/ListedBuildings/lbbuildingdetails.asp?Id=920-1/20/71 |title=Listed Buildings - Number: 920-1/20/71 - Description |publisher=Sunderland City Council |accessdate=2008-08-11] =The building at 51 and 52 Fawcett Street is occupied on the north by
National Westminster Bank and on the south byDianetics and an estate agency. It was originally asubscription library designed by Austin, Johnson and Hicks of Newcastle upon Tyne c.1878 in the Baroque palazzo style and is four storeys high with eight windows on each floor. It is a Grade II listed building.The exterior is ashlar with cast-iron window guards and balconies and the roof is of light grey slate with tall, corniced ridge chimneys. The rusticated ground floor (now altered) has a double panelled door in the third bay in a round-headed opening under a bracketed segmental hood; the central bracket has a draped
escutcheon . The Corinthian pilasters define the bays above. The plain sashes on the upper floors have keyedarchitrave s, those on the second floor have segmental heads and projecting aproned sills. The iron guards link the pilaster bases and, in the central bay of the five-bay bank at the right, project as a balcony. The top entablature has a pulvinated frieze and modillioned cornice. The side consoles to seven segmental-headed dormers with keyed architraves to the plain sashes.
=Corder House and Sydenham House [cite web|url=http://www.sunderland.gov.uk/apps/ListedBuildings/lbbuildingdetails.asp?Id=920-1/20/69 |title=Listed Buildings - Number: 920-1/20/69 - Description |publisher=Sunderland City Council |accessdate=2008-08-11] =Corder House and Sydenham House are two, adjacent, Grade II listed buildings in
Sunderland . Designed by Frank Caws in theNeo-Moorish style, they were constructed in brick andterracotta from 1889–1891.ources
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