5 And 6, Greenmarket

Nos. 5 and 6 Greenmarket, Carlisle

This Grade I listed building, formerly known as Redness Hall and later serving as the Guildhall, now functions as a café with a museum above. The structure replaced an earlier building destroyed in the fire that devastated Carlisle on 4 May 1391. Documentary evidence indicates it was probably constructed between 1396 and 1407 for Richard de Redness.

The building is an L-shaped, three-storey timber-framed structure comprising five bays along Fisher Street and three bays on Greenmarket. It is roofed in Cumbrian slate laid to diminishing courses, with one remaining stack at the northern end of the Fisher Street wing.

The ground floor, probably originally open, is now filled in with stuccoed walls and round-arched windows, though the large decorative timber posts remain visible. The upper floors feature moulded jetties and cornices. Externally, only the posts are visible, the rest being concealed by rendering, weather-boarding on the first floor, and medieval brick tile on the second floor.

The timber framing is visible internally and comprises tall rectangular panels on the street side, divided by a mid-rail with pairs of curved braces rising from the tie-beam to posts or intermediate studs. The cross-walls at first floor level have large concave braces rising from wall posts to the tie-beam on each side. The second floor bracing differs slightly: on the street side, large convex or tension braces rise from the tie-beam to wall posts, while the opposite bracing remains concave. The panelling infill is mainly wattle and daub, with medieval brick tile on the second floor. Some panels remain unrendered for display in the museum.

The original roof over the five-bay Fisher Street section still survives, though altered. It consists of four crown posts with jowls on both sides and rectangular section. Part of the original collar plate survives with convex down-braces from post to tie and concave up-braces from post to plate. This wing was originally gabled but is now hipped. The roof over the three bays of the Greenmarket wing appears to be a later replacement, comprising canted queen posts with clasped purlins and collared rafters. The purlins are clasped between the rafter and a canted queen post jowled on the lower side. One truss is clearly an insertion, with a supporting post pegged onto the original timber framework. Documentary evidence suggests these alterations, including the infilling of the ground floor, occurred between 1573 and 1662, a dating consistent with the queen post roof.

The Greenmarket elevation displays Yorkshire sash windows with glazing bars on the first floor and sash and Yorkshire sash windows with glazing bars in brick reveals on the second floor. Medieval gargoyles are plaster casts of originals from Carlisle Cathedral, first placed here in 1844; all except one on the façade are 1978 replacements. Beside some windows are fixed hooks to support guild flags.

The Fisher Street elevation features ground floor shop windows inserted in 1988, a two-light 15th-century cusped-headed window on the upper floor, and a plank-faced oriel with upper small casement windows with glazing bars. Other windows are casements and Yorkshire sashes.

Internally, most of the timber-framing and roof trusses are exposed. The building has been stripped of some internal partitions and original stairs. A bronze plaque on the stairs records that it opened as a museum in 1978.