Durranhill House

Durranhill House

House, now convent. Built around 1811 for Richard Lowry, with extensions added in the 1830s and a chapel added in 1909. Further extensions followed. (A date of 1862 marked on a rainwater head appears to have no architectural significance.)

The building is constructed of snecked red sandstone ashlar on a chamfered plinth with V-jointed quoins, a cornice and solid parapet. The original house is roofed in local slate, while the extensions have hipped graduated greenslate roofs. Ashlar ridge chimney stacks serve both sections.

The garden front, facing away from the road, comprises the original two-storey, three-bay house with a two-bay left wing. The right wing has been replaced but partly incorporated into a two-storey, seven-bay extension, creating an overall L-shaped plan. The original house features a central panelled and partly-glazed door with fanlight, set within a prostyle Tuscan porch approached by steps. Flanking full-height bowed windows with tripartite sashes in stone architraves flank the entrance (the sashes above are single). The left wing has sash windows in stone architraves. The extension includes a squared battlemented bay window with four-light mullions and transoms, with a similar three-light window above under a hoodmould. The seven-bay return section has an off-centre two-bay projection, featuring ground-floor two-light casement windows and sash windows above with glazing bars, all in painted stone surrounds under hoodmoulds. This section terminates with the parapet carried up as a mock tower.

From the road, a courtyard leads to a five-bay facade added to the rear of the original house. This facade has a central pointed Gothic arch under a hoodmould with a recessed porch. Sash windows with glazing bars in pointed stone surrounds under hoodmoulds are arranged 1:3:1, with the outer bays slightly projecting. Similar windows appear on the extension. The extensions feature a battlemented parapet.

The interior shows alterations from different periods but retains much original detail. An elaborate moulded plaster ceiling survives in a now-divided room, partly covered by false ceilings, comparable to ceilings at Coledale Hall, Newtown Road, dated 1810. The hall contains a ribbed plaster ceiling and painted doors in the Gothic style. Several coloured marble fireplaces survive in the original house and extension. Internal panelled shutters remain at some windows, and panelled doors feature fluted wooden surrounds. The staircase has wooden treads, turned balusters and a moulded wooden handrail.

The Lowry family were previously of "Durnhill". An unexecuted design for Richard Lowry's house was published by Peter Nicholson in his Architectural Dictionary (1812-1819), and the present house is documented as having been built in 1811. Richard Lowry died in a fall from his horse in 1841 at the age of 66 and was buried in Wetheral graveyard. After his death, his daughter let the house to various tenants. The property was eventually sold to an order of nuns, a transaction recorded in the Carlisle Journal in January 1906.