This building is Middlesbrough Town Hall, which acts as a concert venue for bands and touring comedians. It is one of the few remaining Victorian buildings in the town, and sadly looks totally out of place situated among the glass and concrete of  civic vandalism. Middlesbrough and Redcar look very modern, and suffered terribly during the 1960s and 1970s when council planners took cash backhanders and sanctioned senseless destruction.

Middlesbrough Town Hall was completed in 1887 and thankfully is a listed building, (Grade 2 I think but can't be sure). Next to it stands this;

The Middlesbrough Empire was built in 1897 as a music hall and played host to Charlie Chaplin among others, although all surviving music halls claim to have played host to Chaplin. The current owners bought it in 1991 and nowadays it acts as a fashionable discotheque. It too is Grade 2 listed, which is good news for the people of Middlesbrough.

As I said, Middlesbrough suffered a disgusting loss of real architecture during the 1960s and 1970s when the wrecking balls ruled. Victorian grandeur was considered outdated and irreversible damage was done to many towns and cities.

Walking away from these two buildings, I saw something I have never noticed before.

The building with William Hill on the ground floor seems to be the only survivor on that strip of shops. All around it looks very 1960s municipal, so I wonder why that bit survived.