The Assembly Rooms

The Assembly Rooms in Boston are assembly rooms and shops built in 1822, possibly designed by Jeptha Pacey based on earlier designs by William Atkinson. The building underwent alterations in the late 19th century and again in the 1960s after a major fire. It features a stucco and painted ashlar exterior with a 20th-century hipped copper roof.

The building is two storeys high with a seven-bay front and an additional recessed bay to the right. The main facade is arranged in a 2:3:2 pattern, with the central bays slightly advanced and topped by a shallow pediment that holds a garlanded clock. It has giant plain end pilasters, a plain frieze, a moulded cornice, and a low parapet. The central entrance consists of double panelled doors with a traceried fanlight, sheltered by an open projecting porch (partly reconstructed in glass-reinforced plastic) supported by pairs of pilasters and Tuscan columns.

To the left of the entrance is a small fixed light window with a semicircular head, followed by two semicircular arches that contain early 20th-century shop windows, also with traceried fanlights. The right side originally mirrored this arrangement, but now has a 20th-century shop front in the two inner bays. Above, there is a centrally added canted bay flanked by three tall glazing bar sash windows with moulded surrounds, leading to a continuous iron trellised balcony supported by cast-iron brackets.

The recessed bay on the right has a semicircular opening with a fanlight and shop window, with a Venetian window above it. The lower two-storey extension features windows with plain surrounds and a storey band. The riverside elevation also has seven bays, with end pilasters and a first-floor sill band, and the ground floor openings are set in recessed semicircular-headed openings.

The interior was gutted after the fire, but some cast-iron stair baluster panels remain.