Tullie House And Extensions

Tullie House and Extensions, Carlisle

This Grade I listed building comprises a substantial house with major late 19th-century extensions, now functioning as a museum with integrated library, school of art, and technical institution. The complex extends from Abbey Street to Castle Street in an F-shaped plan with an attached gate tower.

The original house dates to 1689, as recorded on a lead rainwater head, and was built for Thomas Tullie, who later became Dean of Carlisle. It underwent significant mid-18th-century alterations and additions. The late 19th-century extensions were designed by C.J. Ferguson of Carlisle, with a foundation stone laid by Benjamin Scott, Mayor of Carlisle, on 26 May 1892, and completion marked by a date of 1893 over the library entrance.

Original House

The house is constructed of red sandstone ashlar, possibly over brick, on a chamfered plinth with V-jointed calciferous sandstone quoins and dressings. It features painted wooden eaves modillions and cornice, with graduated green slate roofs and coped right gable. The ridge and end chimney stacks have been rebuilt in calciferous sandstone ashlar. The building is two storeys with seven bays of double-pile plan. The principal front displays a central panelled double-door surround with bolection moulding, pulvinated frieze, and console-bracketed broken segmental pediment. Sash windows with glazing bars are set in calciferous sandstone architraves on moulded sills, beneath alternating segmental and triangular pediments. The left return is hidden by the 1892–3 extensions. The right return is of painted incised stucco, with the roof valley concealed behind a heightened gable wall. The rear three bays are thought to date from the 1730s or 1740s, featuring sash windows in painted stone surrounds. A large staircase sash window with glazing bars on the right may occupy an enlarged 18th-century surround.

The interior has been extensively altered in the mid-18th century, though some painted panelled walls may be of late 17th-century date. Panelled doors have painted wooden architraves with internal panelled shutters. The original oak staircase features turned and carved barley-twist balusters, ball newel posts, heavy moulded handrail, and dado stair panelling. A fireplace on the ground floor was revealed during recent renovation. The upper floor contains an oak full-height panelled room of mid-18th-century date, with carved fluted pilasters and Corinthian capitals, wooden cornice, and two identical white marble fireplaces with elaborate cast-iron grates. Moulded plaster ceiling cornices survive, some possibly of 17th-century date. Other bedroom fireplaces, though covered, retain cast-iron grates, including one in a bolection surround.

Extensions

The extensions are of red sandstone with graduated green slate roofs and some skylights, comprising two to three storeys and numerous bays. A gate tower, now used as storerooms and formerly the librarian's house, faces Castle Street. It is constructed of red sandstone ashlar on a moulded plinth with string courses, pilasters, and open parapet carrying carved lettering reading "TULLIE HOUSE". The tower is three storeys and three bays, with the left bay recessed and extended upward to form a clock tower topped with a copper-domed cupola and weather vane. The other two bays feature a left through-archway with scrolled wrought-iron gates incorporating the city arms, along with 2- and 3-light cross-mullioned windows on the lower floor and 3- and 4-light mullioned windows above. A panel over the entrance is inscribed "PUBLIC LIBRARY, MUSEUM AND SCHOOL OF ART". A low rear right-angle range connects this tower to the library.

The Public Library, with art gallery above, is of quarry-faced red sandstone with ashlar dressings, moulded plinth, and eaves cornice. A three-storey two-bay entrance hall has a doorway facing the gatehouse and 2- and 3-light stone mullioned windows. The adjoining main library wing is two storeys with seven bays arranged in an L-shape. A projecting two-bay reading room features canted bay windows and blind panels above, carried up from basement with metal grille over the void. The five-bay newspaper room has tall casement windows in eared architraves with cornice and blind panels above.

The museum is also L-shaped, linking with the old house and library. An entrance hall block features panelled double doors and fanlight in a stone surround beneath a pediment, with a scrolled oval panel above and stone mullioned windows on the return. The Natural History gallery, extending toward Abbey Street, has seven windows similar to those in the newspaper room with panels above. The three-bay Abbey Street façade has an off-centre loading bay with panelled and glazed double doors in a large segmental-arched quoined surround, above which is an oval panel carved with the city arms. Tall casement windows with glazing bars in stone architraves and panelled aprons beneath pediments complete the façade. The rear wall facing Annetwell Street is of brick; part was demolished following a library extension of 1936–7.

The interiors of both entrance halls contain stone cantilever staircases with scrolled wrought-iron rails incorporating city arm shields and moulded wooden handrails. Decorative dado tiles in greens and browns are present, with some tiling extending into the library. Some original doors in the library and museum retain their etched glass names.

At the time of survey in 1989, a new Heritage Centre was under construction as part of Tullie House. The garden wall, gates, and railings are listed separately.