Former Holme Head Coffee Tavern And Reading Room

The Former Holme Head Coffee Tavern and Reading Room is a 2-storey octagonal building constructed in 1881 for Ferguson Bros by George Dale Oliver. It was designed as a reading room and coffee tavern for local workers and is now used as a meeting room. The building features English garden wall bond brickwork set on a chamfered plinth, with all dressings made of calciferous sandstone. It has a decorative band of red tiles and a sill band, topped with a hipped red tile roof that includes decorative half-timbered gables and a scrolled finial. Tall red brick chimney stacks rise from the rear.

On the corner, there are 20th-century double doors framed by a moulded brick segmental arch, indicating where a wooden porch has been removed. Each side of the building has paired sash windows on two levels, with some featuring glazing bars and 19th-century coloured glass, all set under shaped lintels and in brick reveals. The interior has not been inspected. The building is connected to the terrace housing on North Street by a single-bay link. A post box is integrated into one of the walls. According to the Carlisle Journal from 1882, the building opened in January of that year, and original plans can be found in the Cumbria County Record Office. North Street was originally named Morley Street when it was laid out in the 1850s.