Old Rooms Inn

The Old Rooms Inn is a building with a complex history, initially dating to the late 16th century, and later expanded in the early 19th century. It originally functioned as a house, was subsequently used as assembly rooms and a public house, and is now offices.

The original core of the building is constructed from large, dressed and coursed Portland stone blocks, with a tile roof and two courses of stone slate to the eaves. The original layout comprised a single-depth two-room block with a central throughway, and a full-height projecting porch with eaves that extended above the main roofline. A rear elevation, originally overlooking the harbor, is now obscured by an early 19th-century range fronting Cove Row.

The Trinity Street frontage presents a symmetrical facade of two storeys and three windows. These windows are recessed hollow-mould stone mullion casements, set flush, and feature a continuous moulded drip-course at the first floor. Each side of the porch has a six-light window, with a four-light window to the front and two-light windows to the returns. Ground floor casements are four-light, with a blocked doorway and a doorway with planking and vertical battens on either side of the porch. Notably, the porch has a square doorway with a plain lintel and a four-panel flush door. A wide plank door, set beneath a flat basket-arch head with a bold keystone and moulded architrave, is found to the north. A large brick stack is located at the back right.

The early 19th-century rear range is constructed of Flemish bond brickwork with a hipped slate roof. It has two storeys and four windows, with 12-pane sashes in reveals set within brick voussoirs on the first floor. The ground floor is largely glazed, with pilasters, a deep cornice with modillions (which extend to Cove Street), and 3-pane transom lights in the 2-pane sashes. A glazed door with a transom light is positioned beneath the second window, and a similar door splayed across the outer corner.

The Cove Street elevation mirrors the Trinity Street front with two-and-a-half bays, two sashes on the first floor, two ridge stacks, a bold moulded cornice, and a rendered rear wall.

The interior ground floor has been opened up, and visible early beams are absent. A blocked fireplace is located in the rear of the room to the right, marked by a deep 4-centred lintel. Behind the fireplace stands a large brick stack.

Historically, the building was the home of Thomas Gear in 1618, and in the 18th century, it served as assembly rooms (Delamotte’s Public Rooms). The building, along with No. 15, and the remains of the Town Pump on Cove Row, forms a significant architectural grouping in a prominent harbor location. The northern end of the building is currently partially concealed by a 20th-century public convenience block.