Facade Of The Former Derby Assembly Rooms At The National Tramway Museum

The facade of the former Derby Assembly Rooms, built between 1752 and 1755, is now located at the National Tramway Museum in Crich. It is tentatively attributed to Washington Shirley, the fifth Earl Ferrers, with Joseph Pickford of Derby as the contractor. The facade is constructed of ashlar gritstone and features chamfered rustication at the basement level.

It has a five-bay front with a raised pedimented three-bay center above the basement. The outer two bays of the basement contain semi-circular headed double doorways, which have voussoirs made of chamfer rusticated ashlar. The central doorway is framed by a Gibbs surround and is flanked by glazing bar sashes, also with voussoirs above. The first-floor openings are adorned with moulded and eared architraves and pulvinated friezes. Bays two and four have scrolled brackets that support segmental pediments, while bays one and five feature plain pediments. The central bay has a dentilled pediment and attached columns with Ionic capitals, along with glazing bar sashes.

An ashlar band runs below the first-floor openings, and there are balustrades on the central three openings and the parapets of bays one and five, which are topped with square terminal piers and banded ball finials. The facade also includes three attic wheel lights in square openings, which have eared architraves beneath a pediment featuring a carved tympanum.

The Assembly Rooms suffered fire damage in 1963, and the facade was re-erected at the National Tramway Museum site in the early 1970s. A plaque on the facade commemorates the rebuilding and its official opening by HRH The Duke of Gloucester, Patron of the Tramway Museum Society, in 1976.