The Assembly Rooms

THE ASSEMBLY ROOMS, BLAKE STREET, YORK

Assembly Rooms designed by Lord Burlington in 1730; foundation stone laid 1st March 1731; completed August 1732 at a cost of £5,000. The Lesser Assembly Room screen and decoration added 1773. Building refronted and portico added 1828 by JB Pritchett. Interior opened up in 1859 by JB and W Atkinson. Major restoration and refurbishment 1990.

The Assembly Rooms are of seminal importance in the history of English architecture.

EXTERIOR

The building presents one storey and attic over five bays. The front and portico are of ashlar; the left return is of orange-buff brick in English garden-wall bond; the clerestory is of stuccoed timber. Slate roofs with brick stack; main roof hipped above prominent eaves cornice.

The centre bays are fronted by a pedimented tetrastyle Ionic portico. A flight of steps leads to central double doors, each of four raised and fielded panels recessed in a fasciated architrave with cornice hood on foliated volutes; a wrought-iron lamp bracket sits above. The outer bays have 18-pane sash windows in similar architraves with cornices set in square-headed recesses between attached Ionic columns. A full-width entablature supports a balustraded parapet on each side of the pediment and breaks forward over the portico. The attic has five 24-pane windows.

INTERIOR

Vestibule and anterooms have stone flagged floors. The main doorcase features an enriched architrave and bayleaf garland frieze; curved subsidiary doorcases of painted stone have pulvinated friezes; all have moulded cornice overdoors and 3-panel double doors with moulded skirtings and cornices.

The anteroom to the left has a stone chimneypiece with eared surround and moulded cornice shelf on grooved brackets; 19th-century alcove cupboards with bordered glazing; and a plaster roundel over the inner door. The anteroom to the right has a fireplace in an eared and enriched architrave with pulvinated frieze and moulded cornice shelf.

The Circular Room is lined with wall paintings of 1951. It has a painted stone fireplace in an eared and fasciated surround with pulvinated frieze and cornice shelf, curved enriched doorcases, and a domed ceiling lit by an octagonal lantern.

The Assembly Room features a peristyle of Corinthian columns supporting a full entablature of garlanded bayleaf frieze and dentilled and modillioned cornice. The walls behind are broken by alternately rectangular and semicircular niches over a raised band. The clerestory has Composite pilasters with swagged capitals, enriched frieze and cornice. Venetian glass chandeliers light the space.

The Lesser Assembly Room contains two marble chimneypieces with eared fasciated surrounds, pulvinated friezes and cornice shelves. A Venetian arch screen contains the entrance to the Cube Room, which has a round-arched recess enriched with guilloche mouldings flanked by two-leaved 3-panelled doors in enriched doorcases. Plaster ornament above features medallions and musical instruments entwined with ribbons. An original lunette window lights the space; the coved ceiling of 1859 has a central lantern encircled by flutes within a rectangular frame with angle mouldings.

The Cube Room has a painted stone fireplace with enriched eared surround and dentilled cornice shelf breaking forward over grooved scroll brackets. The coved ceiling has a square lantern in a border of rosettes. A lunette window lights a recess. A moulded cornice to the ceiling is lit by a domed oculus in a dentilled surround encircled by guilloche mouldings, within a surround of guilloche mouldings with angle rosettes.