Old Ship Assembly Rooms

The Old Ship Assembly Rooms, dating to 1767 with a Ship Street frontage dating to around 1895, is a stucco building with a tile roof. It is a two-storey building with a two-window front. The ground floor features a flat-arched carriage entrance to the right, assembly room entrances to the left (a broad central one flanked by two narrower ones), and the first floor has two oriel windows with original glazing, gutters, and three flat-arched dormers in the roof.

The interior includes the former Assembly Room, now the Regency Room, designed in 1767 by Robert Golden and decorated in the Adam style. A flat-arched entrance to the Ballroom features an architrave, cornice on consoles, a guilloche frieze, and double-panelled doors, possibly of original design. A Palladian window has fluted Corinthian pilasters and a guilloche frieze, with a missing cornice element. One long wall has a window bay flanked by fluted Composite columns, facing a fireplace in the Adam style with calyx ornament in the side panels, fluting, and paterae in the frieze. The walls are panelled above and below the dado, with upper walls framed by bands of fasces and bead-and-reel, potentially from the 19th century. A frieze of festoons and drops, a dentil cornice are present. The segmental-arched ceiling is decorated with figure panels, paterae, and wreaths of bud ornament, with similar bud ornament to the tympana at either end. The windows are now glazed with late 19th-century leaded lights, incorporating panes of stained glass decorated with emblems in the Aesthetic Movement style.

The Ballroom, also designed by Golden in 1767, has undergone substantial reworking. Features include two flat-arched entrances with architraves surmounted by a decorative roundel of musical instruments, a stage at one narrow end (now much altered), a gallery at the other supported by two marbled Doric columns, with festoons and drops. A cantilevered balcony projects from one long side of the room, forming a nearly complete oval with an iron balcony. The upper walls are panelled in plaster, with a dentil and modillion cornice, possibly from 1767. The coved ceiling features three roses with foliage ornament in the center, the outer pair surrounded by calyx ornament, potentially also from 1767. Windows have late 19th-century leaded lights with some panes of stained glass decorated in the Aesthetic Movement style.

The Assembly Rooms were connected to the Old Ship Hotel, the oldest and most significant inn in Brighton's 18th and early 19th century history.