Description

CARLISLE

NY4055NW GREENMARKET
671-1/12/171 (North side)
01/06/49 Nos.5 AND 6
Guildhall
(Formerly Listed as:
GREENMARKET
Guildhall (including Grill and
Buttery on ground floor))

GV I

Formerly known as: Redness Hall GREENMARKET.
Includes: Nos.58 AND 60 FISHER STREET.
House (sometimes called Redness Hall), then Guildhall, now
cafe with museum over. Documentary evidence suggests that the
present building replaced an earlier structure which was burnt
down in the fire that broke out in Carlisle on 4th May 1391
which also destroyed many other properties. The hall was
probably constructed between 1396 and 1407 for Richard de
Redness.
An L-shaped, 3-storey, timber-framed building with 5 bays
along Fisher Street and 3 bays on Greenmarket. Cumbrian slate
roof laid to diminishing courses with one stack remaining at
northern end of Fisher Street wing. The ground floor was
probably open originally but it is now filled in with stuccoed
walls and round-arched windows. The large timber posts are
still evident and retain some of their decorative mouldings.
The upper floors have moulded jetties and cornices. Only the
posts are visible externally, the rest of the framing is
hidden by rendering, together with weather-boarding on the
first floor and medieval brick tile on the second floor. The
framing of these floors is visible on the inside and consists
of tall rectangular panels; those on the street side of the
building are divided by a mid-rail and the lower half of these
panels contain pairs of curved braces (rising from the
tie-beam to a post or an intermediate stud). The framing of
the cross-walls at first floor level has large concave braces
(rising from the wall posts to the tie-beam) on each side of
the building. The pattern on the second floor is slightly
different, for the bracing on the street side consists of
large convex/tension braces (rising from the tie-beam to the
wall post). The opposite bracing is concave like the floor
below. The infill of the panelling is mainly wattle and daub
with medieval brick tile on the second floor. Some panels
remain unrendered for display inside the museum.
The original roof construction, although altered, still
survives over the 5-bay Fisher Street section and consists of
4 crown posts. The crown posts are jowled on both sides and
have a 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. Although now hipped, the roof of
this wing was originally gabled.
The roof over the 3 bays of the Greenmarket wing appears to be
a later replacement and consists of canted queen posts,
clasped purlins and collared rafters. The purlins are clasped
between the rafter and a canted or raked queen post which is
jowled on the lower side. One of the trusses (which appears to
be identical to the others) is clearly an insertion with a
supporting post that is pegged onto the original timber
framework. Documentary evidence suggests that these
alterations to the medieval building, including the infilling
of the ground floor, might have occurred between 1573 and
1662. Such a date for the queen post roof would be quite
reasonable.
The Greenmarket elevation has, on the first floor, Yorkshire
sash windows with glazing bars and on the second floor sash
and Yorkshire sash windows with glazing bars in brick reveals.
Medieval gargoyles are plaster casts of originals in Carlisle
Cathedral, first placed here in 1844; all except one on facade
are 1978 replacements. Beside some windows are fixed hooks to
support guild flags.
Fisher Street elevation has ground floor 1988 shop windows;
upper floor 2-light C15 cusped-headed window; plank-faced
oriel with upper small casement windows with glazing bars.
Other windows are casements and Yorkshire sashes.
INTERIOR: complete except for removal of some internal
partitions and no original stairs. Most of the timber-framing
and roof trusses are exposed.
Bronze plaque on stairs states that this opened as a museum in
1978. Further details are given in the Guildhall Museum
leaflet.

Listing NGR: NY4003855976

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• 5 And 6, Greenmarket at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17530549

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]