Tithe Barn

I was in Carlisle at the hairdresser this morning, so it is another Carlisle building (4/50). This is the fourth oldest building - The Tithe Barn, West Walls.

The Tithe Barn was built by Prior Gondbour between 1484 and 1507 for the storage of the tithes in kind collected by the church. It functioned as a barn until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, then it became a stable, a dispensary, a dwelling house and a joiner's shop. 

By the 1960s it was semi-derelict and (so the blue plaque says) it was saved from demolition by Carlisle and District Civic Trust and given to the adjacent St Cuthbert's Church. Since then it has been used as a church hall. I have only been in once but remember the huge space and the wooden beams.

(Sorry about all the signs! Gordon was amused to find the signpost had been turned round and every direction was wrong!!)