Original Technical College with ornate terracotta by Potts, Son & Hennings, 1901. Priestman Building of 1939 by Oliver Hall Mark in graceless Beaux-Arts classical bears heavily down on the small Georgian houses opposite. Extended 1951 by G.T. Brown & Son. Edinburgh Building 1964 by the Borough Architect. Wearmouth Hall (now demolished) on Chester Road was a tower block built in 1963. The auditorium next to it was decorated with sculptured cement artwork by Mitzy Cunliffe and was clad in copper sheet. A photographic record was taken before demolition and is lodged with the HER and Tyne and Wear Archives.

The concept of a new town hall for Sunderland was first proposed in 1939 but plans were shelved due to the Second World War, and it was another twenty years before plans were revived. Sunderland’s new town hall and civic centre was a response both to a crisis of accommodation that had seen staff dispersed all over the town in separate buildings, and a desire for a progressive image that would attract new, light industries. The early 1960s was a time of expansion for the town with a proliferation of new house building, and a new civic centre was sought for 900 staff. The seven acre site chosen was some four hundred yards from the 1890 town hall, and was sited between Mowbray Park (Registered Landscape Grade II) and a disused railway cutting. The council brief was for a new building to provide accommodation for all 18 council departments with easy ground-level public access to each. There was to be a civic suite, with a council chamber, committee rooms and members' accommodation plus a small mayoral suite, which was to be capable of functioning as a separate element. There was to be extensive car parking and service facilities with separate car parks for the civic suite and for the departmental offices.
By Sir Basil Spence, Bonnington & Collins, 1968-70. Approachable-looking building. Offices in two large hollow hexagons aligned along Burdon Road with provision for two more as expansion requires. Civic functions isolated in a small half-hexagonal block at the far end of the site. Access by a railway bridge from the town centre or from Mowbray Park via a footbridge. Facades simply treated in bands of pinkish ceramic brick and lightly-tinted glazing. In lower courtyard, a fully-glazed two-storey rates hall and restaurant. Car park built out over the railway cutting. Inside the courtyard, accessed by steps, a series of artfully-designed steps and ramps and paving in the same pinkish ceramic tile. At the top of the slope, beyond the second courtyard, the mayoral suite, assembly room and council chamber with copper-clad lantern. Council chamber has steep timber roof and lantern. Cost £3,250,000 to build.
Not recommended for listing after consideration in 2017. Extract from advice report - 'Sunderland Civic Centre possesses some design interest and reflects the 1960s change in the concept and planning of civic centres. However, mindful of the requirement for rigorous selection of post-war town halls and that architectural interest is paramount in that selection, we are unconvinced that Sunderland Civic Centre achieves the high level of architectural interest required. After assessing all considerations in the round, the building is not recommended for listing and a Certificate of Immunity from listing should be issued.'
The building was subject to historic building recording in 2020 (event 5257 report 2020/98) and 2021 (event 5462 report 2022/88).

Old School House.

Early English style by James Gillis Brown of Sunderland, 1860-1.

Elaborate Gothic Presbyterian Church of St. John, still in use as the United Reformed Church of St. Paul and St. John. Some good detail including a fine symbolically carved tympanum. 1875-7 (datestone 1876). Could seat 750 people. Big, very coarse Decorated church, rock-faced, with outsize cresting to the north-west tower. This church was used as a military hospital during the First World War. There is a brass plaque to commemorate this.

1965 by Pascal J. Stienlet & Son. Free-standing concrete bell-tower; monopitch roof linking the large scale of the church with the smaller scale of the presbytery and parish halls. Stations of the Cross in glass, designed to be viewed from both sides, by David Gormley. Stained glass in south chapel, St. Oswald window by Pierre Fourmaintreaux.
The parish was established to serve the local authority housing estate at Whiteleas. St Oswald’s RC primary school was completed in 1963. By 1963, the church was in planning. It was opened by Mgr Cunningham on 2 December 1965. The architects were Pascal J. Stienlet & Sons, the architect in charge being Vincente Stienlet (born 1941). An attached presbytery was built at the same time but the planned hall connected via the liturgical west canopy was never erected. Therefore, the original architect returned in 1983, to subdivide the original church to form a hall at the east end. At the same time, projecting kitchens were constructed, and a dalle de verre window by Pierre Fourmaintraux re-installed on a curved plan. The former sacristies became cloakrooms and toilets, while new sacristies and confessionals were constructed at the northwest. The church is now served from Sacred Heart, Boldon (qv) and the presbytery is used by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Mother of Christ.

1967-8 by Anthony J. Rossi. The parish was erected in 1955 to serve the Marsden and Horsley Hill housing estates. Mass was said in St Gregory’s school until a presbytery was built in 1958. The contract for the church was ready in October 1964 but building work was delayed until December 1966. By then, the sanctuary had been redesigned to suit the new liturgy. The church was opened on 30 April 1968. The architect was Anthony J. Rossi and the contractor was Randle & Co of Sunderland.
In 1980, the adjacent Rosary Hall was built, connecting church and house. The church was re-ordered in the late 1980s, which probably included the subdivision of the church to create a small weekday chapel in the former east end. The church is now served from St Bede’s, South Shields. The church is a steel portal-framed structure with bricks in stretcher bond and artificial stone dressings. The roof is covered in interlocking clay tiles. The plan is rectangular with narrower east and west ends. A small chapel to the north and a southwest porch are both under low cross roofs. The blind east end has a centrally-placed chimney. The west end has a recessed central bay with a central window of three triangular-headed lights flanked by vertical strip pilasters beyond which are two straight-headed two-light windows. Above and below the windows are beige ceramic tiles. The narrow western bay has three lancets on each side. The nave has five large windows to the south, of five lights each, and three to the north. The east end has five-light windows to the north and south.
Above the narthex is the projecting organ gallery with a centrally-placed pipe organ. The repository in the northwest of the narthex has a window to the nave and may have been a children’s room originally. In front of the window is a timber statue of the Virgin Mary. The nave has a plasterboard ceiling with decoratively patterned panels and recessed lights. The benches are arranged in a V-pattern and the timber platform is asymmetrically placed in the northeast corner. The sanctuary furniture includes the altar, lectern, circular font and tabernacle stand, all of polished blue pearl granite. The latter is placed in front of a window to the northeast chapel, the former Lady Chapel. This chapel has a timber altar and is also used as a reconciliation room. A large timber crucifix hangs on the east wall. A door in the southeast corner leads into the small weekday chapel in the former east end. The Stations of the Cross are unframed timber reliefs.
Rossi was awarded a CBE in 2008 for his ‘services to heritage and conservation’. He was short-listed in the 2009 ACE (Art & Christianity Enquiry) / RIBA Awards for Religious Architecture for the Roman Catholic Church of Annunciation, Little Walsingham, Norfolk which was commissioned by the Diocese of East Anglia.

The rectory was built in the early 1700s. It was an elegant brick mansion. Washington Urban District Council later used it as their offices. It was destroyed by fire in 1949. Residential apartments have been built on the site.

Attractive stone terraces including a post office, which was built as a greengrocers shop. The timber carved consoles on the shopfront include details of fruit. The terrace on the south side of the road includes an attractive arched cart entrance.

School shown on Ordnance Survey second edition of 1896.