Bishops Registry is a Grade II* listed building in the Cumberland local planning authority area, England. First listed on 1 June 1949. Registry. 1 related planning application.

Bishops Registry

WRENN ID
eternal-tower-reed
Grade
II*
Local Planning Authority
Cumberland
Constituency
Carlisle MP: Ms Julie Minns (Lab)
Country
England
Date first listed
1 June 1949
Type
Registry
Address
Bishops Registry, CA3 8TZ
OS grid reference
NY 398 559
Coordinates
54.89458, -2.93997
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: EPC · related consents · flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Bishop's Registry is a former Cathedral library, which was also used as a registry and is currently unoccupied. It features a dated and inscribed frieze over the entrance that reads "THOMAS CARLIOL AD 1699," referring to Thomas Smith, the Bishop of Carlisle. The building is constructed with English bond brickwork set on a red sandstone plinth, with chamfered and other dressings made of calciferous sandstone. It has V-jointed quoins and an eaves cornice. The roof is made of graduated greenslate and includes coped gables and kneelers, along with brick and ashlar gable chimney stacks. The structure is single storey and consists of two bays.

The central entrance has a 20th-century panelled door framed by a bolection architrave and topped with a swan-neck pediment that encloses a bishop's mitre, which may all be 20th-century replacements when compared to the weathering on the stonework. This entrance is accessed via semicircular steps. The building has 20th-century wooden mullioned leaded windows set in replacement bolection architraves. The right return wall has been partly rebuilt in red sandstone. Inside, the walls are plain whitewashed brick without any fixtures.

Local climate

Bishops Registry sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 1,100 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 87% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 80% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 51 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 93% of listed buildings. Of these, 27 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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  • Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
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  • Radon risk assessment
  • Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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