Carlisle’s Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery has marked a successful inaugural year since unveiling its new welcome building, gateway gallery, community rooms, and shop, designed by De Matos Ryan. This development grants the museum its first-ever high street presence in its 130-year history, enhancing accessibility and community engagement in the heart of Cumbria.
The design injects life, visibility, and animation into the historic frontage, making it a vital community asset. In the past 12 months, over 180,000 people have visited Tullie, including 62,483 museum visitors, surpassing the target of 34,000 additional annual visitors and strengthening the region’s tourism offer.
The new Carlisle Gallery has supported 28 weekly hours for volunteer Gallery Engagers, with an incredible 3,447 volunteer hours contributed in the first four months since opening. The gallery features six story-led thematic sections, co-curated, co-designed, and co-produced alongside cross-generational community groups.
New Facilities and Design
The new entrance infill building reorganizes the campus into a cohesive whole, maximizing every millimeter of space. A large, locally sourced red limestone arched entrance portal draws visitors in. Five newly acquired terraced properties have been refurbished to create a new shopfront on the high street, affording deep views and glimpses directly into the heart of the museum.
The historic Grade I listed Gatehouse entrance building received complete external and internal refurbishment and conservation. The new infill entrance building occupies a previously unused service yard, providing a direct and fully accessible route into the museum.
The design minimizes structural alterations, focusing on dismantling non-loadbearing brickwork linings within the existing steel-framed building and keeping new walls to a minimum. Early-stage material selections prioritized carbon footprint and local provenance, utilizing Cumbrian red stone, conservation lime mortars, and traditional leadwork roof detailing.
A new green sedum roof over the infill entrance building adds vital biodiversity to this city-centre environment. Biophilic principles maximize natural daylighting to the core of the building, reducing dependencies on artificial lighting.
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Community Engagement and Participation
Extensive local community engagement, co-design, and deep partnerships with regional community groups, learning and academic institutions, as well as local artists, businesses, and residents of Carlisle, have formed a central thread throughout all phases of the project. The Tullie client team worked closely with De Matos Ryan to shape the museum’s new high street presence, layout, wayfinding, and exhibition design.
The project transforms the visitor experience by creating a clear, welcoming, and exciting atmosphere right from the moment of arrival. Previous layout constraints, poor lighting, and acoustic issues have been resolved. Galleries and learning spaces have been engineered to flex and support all types of activity.
The museum is trialing new ways of using historic collections to inspire individual and collective creativity, well-being, and self-discovery. Located in a tight, landlocked block, the new entrance infill building has been specifically engineered to support a future additional floor and a new first-floor gallery space.
The double-height volume functions as a welcoming threshold, flexible social hub, and event venue with clear visual connections to adjoining community spaces and the brand-new Carlisle Gallery.
In the first year since reopening, the museum has seen significant growth in visitor numbers, with over 20,000 children participating in activities and events. The new shop has sold over 1,200 books and 1,554 postcards, and the café has served 10,269 pots of tea and 4,625 cheese scones.
Sustainability and Environmental Considerations
The upgrades are powered by an air source heat pump and a new low-energy LED light scheme, utilizing daylight-linked dimming and scheduling. The design revitalizes and feeds into existing ventilation systems using passive strategies, reducing energy loss and promoting sustainability.