A specialist tour of the city will be led by James Innerdale, a practicing conservation architect, SPAB Lethaby Scholar and ex-Northern Officer for the SPAB.

Hidden behind the modern shopping city and the obvious land marks of the Cathedral, Castle and City Walls, the buildings and streets of Carlisle reflect the city’s changing fortunes. Despite its location on the border of England and Scotland, beyond the street pattern and the city walls the city retains a number of interesting medieval structures from the otherwise turbulent medieval period including the Tithe Barn and timber-framed Guildhall. Industrial growth through textiles in the early late C18th and the arrival of the train C19th signalled further significant development of the city both inside and outside the city walls. As well as likeable Georgian terraces and the tighter back-to-back Victorian terraces, there are also attractive sequences of avenues and squares.

In addition to exploring the city’s historical and architectural development, the walk will also examine the impact of more recent C20th interventions, look at the architectural language of the buildings as well as how they have successfully or otherwise, integrated into the existing street pattern of the city.

As with any town the character buildings are also influenced by the availability of material and its environment. Carlisle has a distinctive mix of a poor red sandstone, stucco and later brick, all of which have to battle against the harsher northern climes. The walk will look at the impact of both the materials and the climate on the construction of the buildings together with their repair and conservation. Visits will be arranged to those buildings where conservation work has been carried out with varying degrees of success, and there will be an opportunity to discuss the response to and the lessons learnt from the floods in 2005.

Some of these properties date back to the sixteenth century and they were still being built into the nineteenth century. Since then however the skill of using clay as a building material has disappeared. At the same time the use of lime for rendering these buildings was gradually replaced by the use of cement renders, much to the detriment of these clay buildings for which it is completely inappropriate.

Peter Messenger will lead a short tour through key villages of Burgh by Sands, Thurstonfield and Moorhouse on the Solway Plain to highlight the significance of these buildings in the coastal landscape and to illustrate the variety of clay buildings that still exist in the area. He will draw on the challenges faced in trying to secure the future of those in poor condition, but also stress what has been achieved so far through training programmes to ensure that owners and builders alike are now more aware of how and why there is a need to repair and maintain this important, but dwindling stock of vernacular buildings.

The last resident was the Yellow Earl, who finally left the Castle on New Year’s Day 1936; the Castle was requisitioned by the army during the second world war and returned to the Lowther family in a poor condition. Many large country houses were demolished during this period but the seventh Earl decided to leave the castle façade as a monument in the landscape having removed the roof in 1957, and the grounds were used for a large chicken farm and commercial forestry business. Such was the subsequent deterioration of the Castle that in 1999 it was placed on English Heritage’s register of buildings most ‘at risk’.

In 2010 the castle and gardens were leased to the new independent charity, the Lowther Castle & Gardens Trust, and £8.9m of funds secured from the North West development Agency and European Regional Development Fund to develop the castle and gardens into a major visitor attraction.

The Trust’s first goal was to remove Lowther Castle from English Heritage’s ‘Buildings at Risk’ Register. The poor condition of the ruins threatened both the structural stability and significance of the site as a listed building but since the past 70 years had created a place rich in ecology, atmosphere and romance it was decided not to rebuild the castle. Instead the project sought to protect and stabilise the structure from further deterioration and collapse.

Work to reverse the deterioration of the castle, gardens and stable courtyard started in April 2011, and a veritable army of craftsmen have been busy replacing slate roofs, rebuilding collapsed turrets, repairing lime plaster ceilings, refurbishing hundreds of windows and doors, removing hundreds of tonnes of army concrete, and sympathetically installing modern services. The conservation work involved a great deal of specialist heritage work, particularly stonemasonry and joinery. All of this work was carried out in consultation with English Heritage. The project also provided for some highly skilled apprenticeships.

The stable courtyard is now open with new café, glorious toilets, meeting room and restoration exhibition. The gallery and museum will open in April 2013, and whilst there is currently no unsupervised public access into the ruin, this will change as the project draws to the completion of phase 1.


Brougham Hall (www.broughamhall.co.uk)

Grade ll* listed Brougham Hall has been the site of a fortified house since 1307, and is ideally located on a site which offers a natural defensive position on the brow of a hill with water available from two nearby springs. By the sixteenth century, a large and complex range of buildings existed on the site, including a manor house, a byre and a gate, to which a seventeenth century pele tower was added together with the charming Cromwellian chapel, with its superb medieval woodwork, which stands alongside the Hall. Ownership of the Hall passed through various hands over the years, each either adding to the complex or responsible for its restoration.

The Hall was largely rebuilt from 1829 to 1847 and again in the 1860s at which time it was the home of the Lord Chancellor Brougham. It acquired the name of 'the Windsor of the North' during the later Victorian period owing to regular royal visits by King Edward VII and his son, the future King George VI.

A change in ownership led to the rapid decay and abandonment of the Hall in the 1930’s and whilst it was commandeered by Churchill for the development of secret weapons during WWII, this only served to further its decay. An extensive programme of restoration and heritage skills training, funded in part by enabling development around the perimeter of the site, commenced when it was bought by its current owner in 1985. Since then, the rate of progress has been conditioned by the availability of finance and skilled labour, with no particular time scale in mind.

Broadleys, Windermere. Arguably Charles F A Voysey’s finest work, designed in 1898 for Arthur Currer Briggs, the son of a colliery owner as a place to entertain. Voysey's fame derived through his total disregard of contemporary design at the time. He drew away from the ornate and intricate look, which so many architects and designers favoured during Victorian times and began a fresh look, using straight lines, gentle curves and open spaces. He took something of a minimalist approach and held firm in the belief that less is more, an attitude we see readily returning today.

Pevsner considered the building a masterpiece – “overlooking Windermere, with extensive front terraced gardens and three distinct large curved bay windows, stretching from the ground to the first floor, providing magnificent views over the lake”.

The Hall/Lounge is a true reflection of Voysey's desire for open space and this has been retained despite the demands of modern day living. Look out for lead inlaid hearts on the staircase and caricature heads carved into the beam ends of the upper corridor. It is now the Windermere Motorboat Racing Club, offering accommodation and a venue for special events but except for residents, it is only open by appointment.

A sandwich lunch will be provided at Broadleys before moving on to Blackwell.

Blackwell, Windermere. Designed by Mackay Baillie Scott in 1900 for Sir Edward Holt, it has been restored and owned and used by the Lakeland Arts Trust as a gallery for Arts and Crafts and contemporary exhibitions. Delegates will also be met by the Trust’s Chief Executive, Gordon Watson

Photo © Lakeland Arts Trust

Blackwell is one of Britain’s finest houses from the turn of the last century and survives in a truly remarkable state of preservation retaining almost all of its original decorative features. One of the real joys of Blackwell lies in its wealth of detail, from the leaf-shaped door handles and curious window catches to spectacular plasterwork, stained glass and carved wooden panelling. Blackwell remains an internationally important icon of Arts & Crafts architecture and its garden terraces, laid out by Thomas Mawson, achieve the best views from the house over the Lakeland landscape.

The period rooms have been carefully furnished with the blend of Arts & Crafts furniture and early country-made pieces advocated by its architect, Baillie Scott. The rooms contain furniture and objects by many of the leading Arts & Crafts designers and studios - furniture by Morris & Co., C F A Voysey and Ernest Gimson, metalwork by W A S Benson and ceramics by Pilkingtons, Maw & Co. and Ruskin Pottery.