Gosforth Council Offices is a former municipal building in the High Street in

Gosforth Gosforth is an area of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, situated north of the Newcastle City Centre, City Centre. It constituted a separate Urban district (Great Britain and Ireland), urban district of Northumberland from 1895 until 1974 before of ...

Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England. It borders Northumberland to the north and County Durham to the south, and the largest settlement is the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. The county is ...

in England. The building, which served as the offices of Gosforth Urban District Council, is now in commercial use.

History

Following significant population growth, largely associated with its status as a residential suburb of

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...

, a

local board A local board of health (or simply a ''local board'') was a local authority in urban areas of England and Wales from 1848 to 1894. They were formed in response to cholera epidemics and were given powers to control sewers, clean the streets, regulat ...

was established in Gosforth in 1872. In anticipation of the local board being succeeded by Gosforth Urban District Council in 1894, civic leaders decided to commission council offices for meetings of the new council. The site they selected was open land on the east side of Gosforth High Street. Construction of new building started in 1894. The building was designed in the

neoclassical style Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassici ...

, built in

rubble masonry Rubble masonry or rubble stone is rough, uneven building stone not laid in regular courses. It may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or ashlar. Some medieval cathedral walls have outer shells of ashlar wi ...

with

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

stone dressings and was completed in 1895. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage of four bays facing onto the High Street. The first bay on the left, which was single storey, was fenestrated with a pair of

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

s, while the second bay contained two sash windows on the ground floor, a prominent

oriel window An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window generally projects from an ...

on the first floor, and a

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a sharp pointed arch at its top. This arch may or may not be a steep lancet arch (in which the compass centres for drawing the arch fall outside the opening). It acquired the "lancet" name from its rese ...

in the gable above. The third bay featured a doorway flanked by

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s and

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their n ...

supporting an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

and a segmental

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

containing a date stone. The fourth bay was fenestrated by pairs of sash windows on both floors. Internally, the principal room was the council chamber. In the early 20th century, a single storey fire station was erected behind the council offices. The fire brigade was equipped with a horse-drawn fire engine from 1905 and with a motorised fire engine from 1912. The fire station was later augmented by a second storey, and an arched carriageway entrance was built between the council offices and the properties to the south, so as to maintain vehicle access for fire engines to their garaging behind. A memorial, in the form of a brass plaque intended to commemorate the lives of former employees of the council who had died in the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, was unveiled by the chairman of the council, Councillor Thomas Nixon Arkle, in October 1921. The building continued to serve as the offices of Gosforth Urban District Council for much of the 20th century, but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

Newcastle City Council Newcastle City Council is the local authority for the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in the ceremonial county of Tyne and Wear in North East England. Newcastle has had a council from medieval times, which has been reformed on numerous occasions. ...

was formed in 1974. It continued to serve as the local offices of the housing department of the city council until 2015, when, with the fire station, it was deemed surpus to requirements and was sold for commercial use.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1895 City and town halls in Tyne and Wear 1895 establishments in England