Cumbria College Of Art And Design Homeacres

Cumbria College of Art and Design - Homeacres is a house that became part of the college, built in the late 1840s or early 1850s. It features incised cement render on a squared plinth with raised quoins made of calciferous sandstone, a sill band, and a dentilled wooden cornice. The roof is made of graduated greenslate and is partly hipped, with cement rendered ridge and rear chimney stacks. The building has two storeys and four bays, with a three-bay left return and a double-depth plan that includes a cross-wing to the right. The gabled storeyed wing has a canted bay window. The left bays contain a right panelled door with an overlight and sidelights set in a stone surround. The sash windows have original margin glazing bars in plain reveals. A stone balcony supported by large stone brackets with wrought-iron balusters and a handrail is located between the floors. There are right and rear 20th-century extensions.

Inside, the building has panelled doors in panelled reveals and some panelled shutters. The principal rooms feature moulded plaster ceiling cornices and some central roundels. A cantilever stone staircase has scrolled cast-iron balusters and a moulded mahogany handrail, and there is a glazed stair cupola with a ribbed plaster vault on a console bracketed cornice.

Originally known as The Villa, this house is marked as such on the 1865 Ordnance Survey map and was later referred to as Stanwix Villa. JD Carr lived here from 1845 to 1854, and it may have been built for him. The name was changed by James Morton when he moved in around 1900. The City Council compulsorily purchased the property in 1949, and it became the College of Art in 1951.