Harraby, Carlisle

The Nosey Cow Inn

—

State Management pub

On the scheme's own roll of 1920 as the Greenbank Inn, Carleton, number 90 on the list.

Sold as the Green Bank to Scottish & Newcastle as part of Group 1, handed over on 17 April 1973. Who bought the rest

Out at Carleton, food-led these days, in a pub the state ran as the Greenbank. Closed Monday to Wednesday.

Today: See opening hours
Address: 4 Carleton Road, Carleton, Carlisle CA1 3DP
Phone: 01228 494736

Directions Ring them

Also known as The Greenbank

History

Opened 1931, as the Greenbank; the Nosey Cow from November 2016

Was: The Greenbank Inn; on the 1920 scheme roll
Opened: 1931, replacing the Carleton Inn (CAMRA)
Closed: 31 December 2011
Reopened: November 2016, as the Nosey Cow

When the Greenbank at Carleton was being refurbished in 2016, there was a cow in the field across the road that took an interest in the building work. Every time the concrete mixer started up she came over to watch. So when the work reopened the pub that November, with wood finishes throughout and a wood-fired pizza oven, they named it after her: the Nosey Cow.

The Greenbank was a State Management pub. The scheme's own roll of its houses in 1920 lists the Greenbank Inn, Carleton, at number 90, between the Graham Arms at How Mill and the Greyhound at Cotehill. So the state ran this one too, out on the London road side of the city, and nothing on the building says so now.

The building is probably younger than that roll. Historic England's survey has the scheme buying a house and adjoining cottage called Green Bank soon after 1919 and making them a tea room, public bar and smoking room. A decade later the city council wanted Carleton Road widened, so Harry Redfern drew a replacement, dated 28 August 1930, and it was completed on 1 September 1931. CAMRA record the Greenbank as opened in 1931, replacing the Carleton Inn, and Mike Tuer's records have the Green Bank opening in a converted house that was demolished in 1930 for the present building.

Not all of the old house went, though. Redfern kept an older wing, perhaps once a pair of cottages, for a mixed smoking room and a men's smoking room, and put the public bar in a new block, with a central servery and table service to the smoking rooms. He matched old and new so closely that Historic England's survey thought it could pass for a nineteenth-century building, which was unusual for him. When the scheme put it up for sale in 1972 it still had a public bar, two smoking rooms and a four-bedroom manager's flat.

It had a gap before the cow. The Greenbank closed on the last day of 2011 and stood shut for nearly five years; it is registered as an Asset of Community Value, which is the protection a community asks for when it is worried about losing its pub.

It is food-led now, doing pizza, British and Italian dishes, Sunday lunch, steaks and cocktails, with a couple of changing cask beers, a garden and parking. Dog and family friendly.