City Centre, Carlisle

The Andalusian

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Built 1932 by Harry Redfern for the scheme, and the most flamboyant thing he ever designed.

Redfern's most extravagant building — a Hispano-Moresque pub of 1932 in terracotta with a Moorish balcony, now a tapas bar and restaurant. Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Also known as The Crescent Inn, The White House, Prezzo

History

Opened 1932

Built: 1932, by Harry Redfern
Style: Hispano-Moresque
Listed: Grade II
Replaced: The Lord Brougham, across the road

A Moorish palace on Warwick Road. Redfern built a great many sober Arts and Crafts pubs; then in 1932 he built this, and critics at the time thought it too exotic for Carlisle.

Terracotta-faced on a banded volcanic ashlar plinth, mansard roof in green pantiles, two and a half storeys and seven bays, in the Hispano-Moresque style, with a three-arched balcony over the front door on marble pillars and decorative wrought-iron railings. Grade II listed. One enthusiast who toured every Redfern pub named this his favourite of the lot.

The inside matched. Both floors were decorated with Islamic-style floor and wall tiles. Both have been opened out since, but much of the tiling and the original fireplaces survive.

It was built to take over from the Lord Brougham, which stood across the road — the same pattern as the Apple Tree, the Crown Inn and the Horse & Farrier.

The names have wandered: the Crescent Inn, then the White House, then a period of disuse, then a bar-restaurant from December 2009, then Prezzo, and now the Andalusian — which, after ninety years, finally matches the building. The old White House name has stuck to the address, which is still given as The White House, 6 Warwick Road.

Not to be confused with the Crescent Bar, a separate venue about thirty metres away on The Crescent. Two different places with confusingly similar histories of naming.

Directions Ring them