Town Moor boundary stone. Late C18. Sandstone. Round-topped stone about one
metre high; arms of Newcastle in low relief on north face. After a dispute in
1770 between the Freemen and the Corporation of Newcastle the boundary was marked.

Stone properties, façade painted white. In 1824 Houghton's first post office opened in No. 3. Mr Metcalfe was the postmaster. In 1854 Robert Burne took over. By 1891 Christopher Plews had taken over. The family also lived in the property and ran a photography business from it. Around 1918 the post office moved to No. 48 Newbottle Street. Sunderland Street was formerly a long vibrant shopping street, with various shops including Palister's Drapery. When the road was truncated by the A690 works, a large number of buildings were demolished and the character of the street was altered. Once an integral part of the core of the town, Sunderland Street is now more peripheral in character and function. Broadway House (Government Offices), Frederick Place and Buffs Club have spoilt this street. No. 1 is occupied by Legge and Miller. No. 3 by North Eastern Wholesale Optical Company.

Dramatic Victorian red-brick building unique to the Conservation Area. It retains a sense of grandeur. Has shaped gables and sandstone strings and dressings. The historic shop fronts survive to an extent and could be feasibly reinstated in the future.

Three storey inn. Rather grand, built in sandstone, columns to either side of the central front door supporting a porch on which was a stone lion. In the early 19th century Houghton-le-Spring's magistrates were based on the first floor. There were two cells in the basement! The petty sessions were held here on alternate Thursdays from 1834 until a police station and justice room was built by 1890 on William Street (HER 3604). In 1827 and 1829 George Livingston was the landlord. In 1836 Robert Binks, 1841 Jane Binks, 1846 Robert Binks. On 21 November 1850 an inquest was held in the White Lion into the Houghton Colliery disaster of November 11th. June to November 1854 George Humble was proprietor. In November 1855 Arthur Binks advertised the White Lion Inn to let in the Newcastle Courant. On 1st May 1857 there was an advert in the same newspaper for the furniture and miscellaneous effects of Mr Middlemass from the White Lion Inn. 1858 and 1861 the proprietor was Mary Harrison. Auction notice in 1865 for Mr Harston's White Lion Inn. 1869 auction notice for Mr Bowey's inn. 1883 to 1885 Mr Smyth. 1890 Isabella Smyth (she is buried in Houghton Hillside Cemetery). 1894, 1895 and 1901 James Turnbull Dixon. 1911 the inn keeper was Robert Dixon Marshall. 1914 Jonathan Herbert Walton. 1938 White Lion Commercial Hotel was owned by Albert Barron. 1950s Jim and Beet Davison. The inn was rebuilt by 1969 taking up some of the former town hall plot. Houghton Heritage Society describes the existing 1960s building as "ghastly".

House, now shop. Pre-1827 for Major Anderson; c.1900 shop with later alterations.
Ripple-dressed sandstone ashlar with tooled margins; Welsh slate roof, brick
chimney. Gothic style. 3 storeys, 3 bays. Pedimented shop fascia. Wide central
bay has 3 pointed-arched cusped lights to square-headed window with label string;
plainer window above with 3 lower pointed lights and dripmould. Narrow projecting
side bays have cusped lancets with dripmoulds under blind cross slits and shields,
that at left eroded and that at right the Anderson arms. First floor central sill
string. Roll-moulded parapet coping. Hipped roof with central chimney. Historical
note: this was the west boundary of the estate of the Anderson mansion in Pilgrim
Street; John Dobson prepared a scheme for the development of the estate for Major
Anderson. This house was described in 1827 as 'in an antique fashion'. Source:
E. Mackenzie History of Newcastle 1827; pp.174, 199, 200. In 2013 this is Yummies.

Department stores and offices. 1931-2 by L G Ekins, C W S Architect, for Newcastle Co-operative Society Ltd. Most glamorous Art Deco department store. Steel frame; Springwell sandstone ashlar; green mosaic top tower storeys; green pantiled roof. Curved site round corner of Darn Crook (now St. Andrew's Street). Art deco style. 4 storeys and attics with 2 towers; 6:1:15:1:7 bays, 30 bays in all. The 3 left bays are an addition of 1959 in replica. Entrances in tall square towers which have 3 full-height windows, with vertical and diagonal glazing bars and tall opening lights; stepped tops under set-back fluted band; set-back top storey has horizontal windows with decorative glazing bars; wrought iron crestings. 15, bays between towers have altered ground floor windows; giant pilasters above support deep fascia and wrought-iron wave-patterned balcony. On top floor columns with lotus capitals in front of all tall casements with fish-scale glazing bars in overlights; other windows casements with glazing bars. Left bays in plainer style have 2 square-headed dormers. Right curved corner bays have central panel on first and second floors containing shallow canted bay; dormer above has fluted stone pilasters; plainer dormers over end bays. Left tower has barometer; right has clock with the letters C O O P E R A T I V E in places of figures. Interior has marble staircases with marble balustrades: steel handrail carried on small figures in flowing style: marble-clad walls to stair wells with shaped door surrounds. Corner display-cases have decorative glazing bars. Historical note: at the opening in 1932, the distinguished guest was presented with a television set. Source: Newcastle Evening Chronicle, September 5, 1932, p.8.
McCombie - Ekins worked in Newcastle and Manchester for the Co-operative Wholesale Society before establishing the London CWS architects' department in 1916. His earlier work can be seen in Stowell Street. In 1930 he travelled to study German and Dutch architecture with CWS architects WG Townsend-Gray and WA Johnson and the Newcastle co-op is based on the 1920s German pattern of Messel and Olbrich. Three bays of the building are a matching addition of 1959. The stairwells were originally marble-lined with corner display cases, with zigzag rails in front of the windows, solid balustrades with steel handrails on the bent backs of little men climbing the stairs with their load. On the top floor some beams have a wave motif which was also used in the original shop window stained-glass frieze (replaced in 1990s). A 1930s fragment survives in St. Andrew's Street in a 1902 extension by E. Shewbrooks to the 1870s store originally on the site.
Grundy - the 1930s building is concrete encased steel. This was used presumably to reduce corrosion or for fire protection but it also provided a base for decorative finishes. The North Eastern Co-operative Society first acquired a site on Newgate Street in around 1887. By 1889-90 Nos. 103-109 belonged to the co-op. GOAD insurance plans show that there were 8 departments housed in separate units, each with its own shop door. Some were along Newgate Street and others were around an arcade with a glass roof - a boot and shoe department, tailors, milliners, hosiery, hats, grocery, fruit and meat. On the first floor above there were offices and a boot and shoe factory, a furnace and two gas engines! This arrangement would have looked like the Co-op from Annfield Plain which has been rebuilt at Beamish Museum. The façade was Queen Anne style - red brick with sandstone dressing and restrained Georgian details. The shop windows were plate glass with segmental arched tops. The whole of this section has been replaced by the 1930s building. In the 1890s land was acquired on St Andrew's Street. The existing buildings and St. Andrew's Tannery were demolished around 1899. The new co-op building was built in 1902 and was designed by E. Shewbrooks in the Baroque style. This includes an arcade with cast-iron columns and 6-bay roof. This building still stands. Between the blocks on Newgate Street and St. Andrew's Street stood a group of properties including the Bull and Mouth pub. These buildings were demolished by the Co-op in 1928. Between 1929 and 1932 the Newgate Street building was demolished and replaced by the present Art Deco store. In 1954 the shop floor plans were made open plan like the rest of the store. In 1959 three extra bays were added to the south end. In the 1960s the ground and first floors of the 1930s building were expanded backwards. The 1902 cast iron Arcade section was incorporated into the 1930s building. It was recorded in 2014 ahead of the conversion of the building.

3 houses, now restaurant. Third quarter of C18. English bond brick; purple slate
roof with flat stone gable coping. 3 storeys, 6 bays. Step up to hardboard-
covered door of central house; similar doors to other houses, all in round
architraves with frieze and cornice. Wide boxes to sashes, some renewed, with
glazing bars, almost flush with wall face, under cambered brick arches; plain brick
sills. Ground floor sashes partly covered; some top floor sashes have late C19
glazing bars. Left end chimney. 2 gaslamps on brackets attached to wall: square,
tapered, with cylindrical ventilators on pyramidal tops.

This building was listed Grade II in 1987 with the following description:
'Hotel and shops. Hotel incorporates the upper floors of Nos 28,30,34 and 36 NEVILLE STREET, Nos 1-17 odd GRAINGER STREET and the second floor of No.51 WESTGATE ROAD. East front 1874 by John Johnstone, South Front 1897 by HM Graham. Sandstone ashlar; purple slate roof and copper domes. Italianate style on earlier front. Main south elevation mild Baroque. Plan: Angled L-plain occupying one end of a city block. Late C19 and modern shops on all 3 fronts, on ground floor. South (entrance) front 5 storeys and attic 9 bays, symmetrical. Projecting quoined centrepiece with recessed modern door and fanlight in cast iron porch; balcony over. Ground -floor shops retain their stone dividing pilasters and fascia. Carriage arch in left bay; angled right corner with granite column supporting first floor. Round-arched first-floor centre window with rusticated archivolt and triple keystone. Paired flanking windows. Other first-floor windows shallow canted bays, except for pointedd bay at left and angled bay at right corner. Cast iron balcony at second-floor level. Outer bays rise as half-octagonal projections, with floor strings and cornices. Upper windows paired sashes in architraves eaved on second and third floors, the latter with alternately segmental pediments. Deep modillion top cornice except in outer bays which have strapwork drums under domes. Central shaped and pedimented gable, with shell niche; 3 paired-sash dormers at either side. East front 4 storeys and attic; more elaborate design. 15 bays in all. 3-bay left section as South front. 3 right bays plainer to balance. Rusticated ground-floor pilasters retained between later shops, and bracketed farcia cornice above. End sections have paired windows in giant round-arched recesses. Centre section has paired sashes. Elaborate window treat- ment includes carving, attached columns, euriched cornices on second and third floors; toppd by 3 groups of 3 large shaped, coped gables with urn finials. 4-bay north front on Westgate Road similar to right bays of east front.'
Now the Thistle Hotel and shops and cafes. In 1890 it was announced that the County Hotel was to be enlarged. The lessee, Robert Brown, had purchased land to the west occupied by Lockhart's Cocoa Rooms. Here he built two shops at street level, a coffee room above and 40 bedrooms on 4 floors above that. The existing front of the County was demolished and a new frontage built further forward - the 135 feet façade that survives today. James Deuchar bought the County in 1920.

Railway hotel, 1861-3 for the North Eastern Railway by Thomas Prosser, based on an earlier design by John Dobson. Enlarged in 1888-90 and later by William Bell. Richard Storey was chief clerk of works. Rear extensions added 1924-5 by Stephen Wilkinson and 1934-5. Iron frame, clad with red brick and ashlar sandstone, Welsh slate roof. The hotel opened as the Central Station Hotel. It was intended to augment the small number of hotel rooms which had been incorporated into the east end of the station behind the lunette windows on Neville Street. The new hotel cost £7777 3s 10d. The contractors were Waite and Howard. NER Architect William Bell extended the building eastwards with a square tower at the junction of the two builds. The contractor was Walter Scott. The original hotel entrance was rebuilt to provide access to the rear. Part of the ground floor became a booking office for coastal trains, with new street access. The main function rooms were housed within the raised ground floor with pedimented windows. A billiard room was in part of the basement. The public spaces were decorated with Burmantoft tiles supplied by the Leeds Fireclay Company. Two storeys and an attic were later added to the original 1860s building to even up the height between the two builds. In 1924-5 Stephen Wilkinson's rear extension provided a banqueting hall and extra bedrooms. In 1934-5 a second rear extension contained a buffet lounge and new rear entrance. The gents first floor lavatories were added. The original ornate office was removed from the entrance hall. An enlarged entrance was created through the former rear wall. In 1948, when railways were nationalised, the hotel was taken over by the British Transport Commission. It was sold to a private owner in 1983.

18th century public house. Sandstone. Façade painted white. Quoins. Two storeys, roof lights in attic replaced original dormers. Two doors on front elevation each with classical style door surrounds, double window between the two doors. Three windows on first floor. This is probably Houghton's oldest surviving pub. Originated as a coaching inn. In 1824 the Golden Lion was owned by the Reverends John and Edward Bulmer, Philip Bulmer and Francis Louise Bulmer. In 1827, 1829 and 1834 John Welsh was the proprietor. From 1841 to 1861 Thomas Surtees was inn keeper. He held auctions in the inn. 1871 Mark Jobling. 1881 George Ambler. 1884 Thomas Horton was proprietor of the Golden Lion Commercial Hotel & Posting House. 1890 George Harding. 1891 Hugh Sydney. 1894 Hugh Hall. 1901 Robert Crofton. 1911 Thomas Gittens. 1914 John Stamp. 1938 Chas Maffey. 1960s Iris and Walter Pawley. 1971-3 Tom and Betty Barron. 1973 David and Jinny Walton. C1974 Joe and Rita Murray. C1975 Vi and Terry Tunnicliffe. 1996 John Pender and Linda Murray. Vaux refitted the pub in 1998. 1999-2000 Diane and Chris Robinson. Sept 2008 to 2012 Paul and Rachael Thompson. The public house has a snug, bar, back bar, kitchen and rooms to the rear. The former stables at the back are now a garage. The hay loft is now used for storage. A drain in the cellar is connected to the Houghton Burn culvert. The pub closed on 10th August 2013. Sold and being converted into a restaurant.