Albert Hall

Albert Hall, North Circus Street, Nottingham

A Methodist church, now a public hall, built in 1908 to designs by AE Lambert. It was restored and converted in 1989. The building is constructed in brick with a buff terracotta front and hipped slate roof, executed in the Baroque Revival style.

The exterior presents a symmetrical front with an attached square tower to the right. The ground floor is rusticated, with a first floor sill band and pierced balustrade above. The building rises three storeys with a five-window range. Windows are mainly original wooden-framed casements and cross casements.

The projecting central bay features a stepped flat gable with an inscribed panel. At first floor level, heavily rusticated double pilasters define the composition, and an open pediment contains a cartouche with festoons. A central aedicule with Ionic columns and a broken segmental pediment covers three windows beneath a cornice. The ground floor has four small windows with voussoirs.

The side bays contain single windows with pilaster surrounds and open pediments filled with elongated keystones. Above these are round glazing bar windows with festoons. A round-arched ground floor recess with keystone contains two double doors with voussoirs.

The projecting end bays are topped with attic dormers featuring round-arched openings under pediments. First and second floor windows have rusticated flanking columns and pediments filled with elongated keystones. The ground floor has segment-arched openings with keystones and double doors.

The square tower comprises three stages with rusticated clasping buttresses topped with domed pinnacles. A round-arched opening with wrought-iron double gates and overthrow is accompanied by a small window to the left and three small windows above. Recessed side panels with cornices contain small third stage windows with festoons. A round turret with ogee dome and finial is pierced by four round-arched openings flanked by Ionic columns carrying segmental pediments.

The right return, in brick, features five Diocletian windows with pediments on the transoms.

The interior contains double flights of stone stairs with cast-iron twist balusters. The basement foyer has alabaster wall panels and an enriched cornice, with three foliage ceiling panels. Two moulded panelled doors have eared wooden architraves. Between them stands a round-arched bronze war memorial panel dated 1920. An adjoining panelled office has a dentillated cornice.

The first floor gallery, now the main hall, is covered by a segmental plaster vault with enriched cross ribs and round rooflights with stained glass, supplemented by latticework ventilators. On each side runs an arcade of seven bays with round columns and arches. At the front stands a three-tower organ case, flanked by single stained glass windows. The rear wall is plaster panelled with a dentillated cornice, divided by paired Ionic pilasters into five bays. A central single door with pediment is flanked by double doors, with a panelled tympanum above divided by two paired pilasters. Side passages feature transverse arches and six round-arched windows with patterned stained glass.