The Assembly Rooms And Curtis Museum And Inwood Court

SU7139 903/2/10027 19-OCT-00

ALTON HIGH STREET/CROWN HILL The Assembly Rooms, Curtis Museum and Inwood Court

GV II

Assembly rooms , cottage hospital and mechanics institute. 1880; by C.E Barry; extended and altered circa late C20. Red brick with yellow and moulded brick dressings. Clay plain tile roofs with gableted hipped and gabled ends and overhanging eaves with exposed rafter ends. PLAN: Three detached buildings on three sides of a square, open to High Street on the fourth [NW] side. At the opposite [SE] end is the Cottage Hospital [now Inwood Court]; on the SW side are the Assembly Rooms and on the NE side is the Mechanics Institute [now the Curtis Museum]. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. The Assembly Rooms, 3:4 bay front, to left a large full-height 3-light window with polychrome brick depressed 2-centred arch with moulded brick cills, strings and hoodmoulds continuing around 2-light windows in the projecting towers which have moulded brick modillion cornices and hipped pavilion roofs with squat spires; later C19 porch in the angle at centre; to right 2-light depressed 2-centred arch windows, ground floor recessed with polychrome depressed 2-centred arches; SE side has late C20 extension; NW end facing High Street has projecting gabled 2-storey bay with similar fenestration, all with sash windows without glazing bars. Former Mechanics Institute has similar end elevation to High Street, but ground floor windows converted to doorway and porch added; SW front 7:2 bays, similar fenestration, but on first floor larger tripartite windows in small gables with braced bargeboards and small 2-light widow at centre; doorway at centre with tiled canopy on brackets. Former Cottage Hospital, symmetrical 2:3:2 bay NW front, central projecting gable with 3-bay arcade to porch with pointed arches and tripartite Gothic window above with polychrome brick 2-centred arches and gable with collar and king-post to bargeboards; 2-light windows to left and right, square heads to ground floor and depressed 2-centred arches on first floor; yellow brick bands; slender fleche over ridge at centre and axial brick stack to right; late C20 extensions to right [SW] and at rear [SE]. INTERIOR: Assembly Rooms, hall has inserted C20 suspended ceiling but original ceiling with bracketed main beams and moulded axial beams remains above. Cottage Hospital interior converted into sheltered housing. Mechanics Institute interior remodelled for use as museum, but central staircase remains. SOURCES: Buildings of England, p.77. Hampshire Chronicle, 9:10:1880.