Barn Close

Overview

Barn Close is a house designed in 1902 by architect Norman Evill for Edwin and Maud Scott-Nicholson, built in the Arts and Crafts style. The house is constructed of roughcast with roughly dressed red sandstone dressings and graduated Lakeland slate roofs.

Plan and Layout

The house follows a corridor plan arranged around three sides of an entrance courtyard, which is entered from the east side. The three ranges consist of a south-east living wing, a south-west service wing, and a north-east stable and garage wing.

Exterior

The house occupies an elevated site, positioned to command panoramic views of the city of Carlisle, the River Eden, and beyond. It rises two storeys with a basement beneath steeply pitched roofs featuring sprocketed eaves and graduated Lakeland slate coverings. Tall, corniced chimney stacks stand at the ends and ridges, and a high rusticated stone plinth runs along the base. Most windows are now replacement uPVC sliding sash frames, though these reflect the original fenestration, including the number of panes.

South-East Elevation

The two-storey asymmetric south-east elevation features rainwater heads decorated with the initials SN (for Scott-Nicholson). An off-centre, projecting five-bay element has a central entrance flanked on either side by tall recesses, each containing a nine-over-nine window. At each end of this section stands a double-height canted bay window topped with a triangular pediment. The round-headed entrance has a glazed and timber door with a fanlight above, beneath a red sandstone sundial inscribed "Mark But Sunny Hours". Between the first-floor bay windows are three rectangular windows. A narrow bay to the right contains a tall single ground-floor window, while a very wide bay to the left is largely blind except for a similar window on the first floor and a nine-over-nine window with margin lights on the ground floor. The right return is blind apart from a pair of first-floor windows and a single ground-floor window.

South-West Elevation

The south-west elevation has a wide projecting gabled right bay with three ground-floor and two first-floor windows, plus a narrow slit window in the apex. A central three-bay section contains three similar windows on each of the two floors. The elevation ends with a projecting asymmetrical gabled bay featuring an identical window on each floor.

North-East Wing

The six-bay north-east wing, which formerly comprised coal store, coach house, and motor garage, retains three former arched coach house openings and an identical opening to the motor store, all now blocked with brick and fitted with inserted windows. The first floor has timber boarded walls pierced with regular fenestration. Attached to the left end is a projecting rectangular bay, formerly a stable and harness room fronting a rectangular stable yard. The inner side retains the original main opening flanked on either side by a window, all now fenestrated, and there is a four-light roof dormer window. The gabled left return has scattered fenestration.

Inner Court Elevations

The inner court elevations feature low sweeping roofs pierced by several dormer windows and multiple tall ridge brick chimney stacks. The south-east elevation comprises a wide, almost full-width gable that extends through the roof line. It has a central segmental-headed entrance with a projecting red and yellow sandstone doorcase with splayed jambs and a lozenge-shaped date-stone above. An original boarded and studded door with ornate bell push is fitted to the entrance. Three regularly spaced windows appear on the first floor, and an ornate cast-iron bell structure with pull is mounted to the right of the main entrance.

The south-west elevation has an off-centre double-height, narrow gabled projection with a ground-floor segmental-headed entrance in a doorcase of rusticated jambs. At the left end is a pair of ground-floor windows. The three-bay north-west range has a gabled right end bay and a window on each floor of each bay; a later flat-roofed porch has been added to the left bay.

Terraces and Garden Features

The house sits on a raised terrace paved with large stone flags and defined by brick buttressed walls with flat coping stones. Stone steps with low stone balustrades, plain piers, and flat coping stones lead south-east to a lower terrace, and south-west to a second paved terrace walk, also defined by buttressed red sandstone walls. At the west end of the terraced walk stands a stone-built round-arched garden structure containing a bronze Classical statue in the form of a dancing satyr or faun with cymbals.

Squash Court

Located immediately north of the house is an L-shaped squash court with pitched roofs and a glazed central section. It has a main round-headed and moulded entrance on the west side fitted with an original panelled door with a hexagonal upper panel.

Interior

Entrance and Corridor

The entrance lobby to the living range features an ornate plaster ribbed ceiling of fruit motifs by George Bankart, and a glazed and panelled inner door. This opens into a six-bay vaulted corridor with arches springing from a series of shallow plaster pilasters on either side. The corridor separates the main stairs, store, and cloakroom from the principal reception rooms, and all door openings are set within round-headed and keyed architraves.

Dining Room

The dining room has small panel oak panelled walls and wood-lined windows. Above the oak panelling runs a broad plasterwork frieze of boldly modelled flower and fruit motifs, with stylised roses, grape vines, blackberries, and pears, along with similarly fruit-encrusted ceiling beams, all by Bankart. The fireplace has a rubbed stone surround carved with the motto "Stay me with flagons / Comfort me with apples". Within the stone surround are ceramic six-inch square de Morgan tiles depicting six varieties of his Ship design in deep red lustre, showing galleons in full sail. The overmantel is carved with alternating octagonal and rectangular motifs and has substantial multi-faceted jambs.

Parlour

The parlour, entered through an original door, has a similarly adorned plaster cornice and ceiling of delicate fir cone and flower designs, also by Bankart. The chimneybreast has an oak chimneypiece infilled with pink and green tiles, and a panelled timber overmantel with an integral mirror or picture frame. This is flanked on either side by a matching timber fitted cupboard with curvilinear heads and curvilinear glazing bars to the upper parts; doors have original butterfly hinges and drops.

Hall

The Hall has an exposed timber ceiling with a chamfered central beam, and a timber chimneypiece with bracketed mantle. It has a shaped head and four timber pegs to each jamb, and a brick inset hearth.

Work Room

The work room has a pair of round-headed alcoves fitted with original timber cupboards and bookshelves, and an integral picture rail.

Service Range

The rooms of the service range are accessed from a plain L-shaped corridor with back stairs and pantry, which opens into a kitchen and a scullery, larder, and wash house.

Stairs and First Floor

The timber straight flight stair with central landing has splat balusters to the top landing and shallow, flat arches, which continue along the first-floor corridor. The corridor opens into two principal bedrooms, one at either end, with smaller rooms in between. All rooms retain their original timber Arts and Crafts chimneypieces, which are bespoke and of high quality. Some have coved ceilings, and some retain round-headed alcoves.

One of the chimneypieces is panelled and sparingly decorated with small, triple square motifs. A second has a shaped mantle shelf and an overmantel with a central recessed panel, and glazed floral delft tiles of a 17th-century tulip and lily motif pattern. A third is a simple surround with moulded mantle shelf and small insert grate; the whole is decorated with William De Morgan blue/green narrow glazed tiles with a centrepiece of his "Rose and Trellis" tiles. A fourth chimneypiece is similar to the third, with a black inset grate with corner roundels; recent photographs show that this chimneypiece, including its narrow hearth, has plain de Morgan tiles in a variety of green shades, which have been subsequently removed or covered over when the grate was modified.

First Floor Service Range

The first floor above the service range has several small plain bedrooms off a corridor, one of which has a small, white chimneypiece with applied rope beading and flowers.

North-East Range

The former north-east coach house, motor house, and stable range has a mid-20th-century interior comprising a corridor on both floors with bedrooms off.

Exclusion Note

Pursuant to section 1(5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, it is declared that the mid-20th-century interior of the north-east range is not of special architectural or historic interest.