Assembly

LANCASTER

SD4761NE KING STREET 1685-1/7/151 (West side) 18/02/70 Assembly Rooms (Formerly Listed as: KING STREET Assembly Rooms (now used as Employment Exchange))

GV II

Assembly room, now antique market and dance studio. 1759, enlarged and altered early and late C19. Possibly by Richard Gillow. For the trustees of Penny's Hospital (qv). Coursed dressed sandstone with quoins and ashlar dressings. Slate roof. Originally L-shaped with a rear wing at the right to house the staircase, but extended behind the main block in the early C19, and again behind the left in the later C19. 2 tall storeys and 5 bays, almost symmetrical. The central entrance has a semicircular Tuscan porch mounted on 3 semicircular steps, with 2 columns and semicolumns without bases, and a doorway with plain surround. To the right, the 5th bay contains a tall doorway with a square overlight and raised quoined surround, leading to the staircase to the assembly room on the upper floor. The windows at ground floor have matching surrounds, but those at 1st floor have raised plain surrounds, all are large 18-pane sashes, and the glazing bars of some at 1st floor may be original. Between the 1st and 2nd, and the 4th and 5th bays lead rainwater heads are mounted below the moulded wooden gutter cornice. The roof is hipped. INTERIOR: ground floor has an axial beam supported by 2 cast-iron columns (probably C19). Upper floor reached by open-well staircase with closed string, turned balusters and ramped handrail. The assembly room on 1st floor has a musicians' gallery (probably by Gillow's) carried on 2 wooden Tuscan columns, with a projecting centre supported by brackets, and the front panels decorated with Chinese Chippendale fretwork design; the walls have raised fielded panelling, and a dentilled cornice to the coved ceiling. At ground floor a doorway behind the staircase has an ex situ lintel carved with initials and the date '1714'.

Listing NGR: SD4753261637