Assembly Rooms the Milton Rooms

Assembly Rooms, Milton Rooms, Masonic Temple and Public Hall, Malton

This complex comprises three linked buildings on Yorkersgate and Market Place: the Assembly Rooms (1814), the Milton Rooms (circa 1930), and a Masonic Temple (1858-59, not inspected).

The Assembly Rooms is a 2-storey building with a 5-window front constructed in cream brick laid in Flemish bond, positioned on a painted stone plinth with painted stone dressings. The rear and sides are of pink and cream mottled brick. The roof is hipped slate with a truncated brick stack at the rear.

The front elevation features a central pair of raised-and-fielded panel doors approached by 3 steps, recessed within an architrave with a moulded cornice hood carried on grooved consoles. On either side are 12-pane sash windows positioned above painted stone panels set in raised surrounds that incorporate the sill. The first floor contains tall 15-pane sashes over similar sunk panels. All windows are topped with flat arches of gauged brick. A raised first-floor band and moulded band beneath the projecting eaves articulate the façade. Above the first-floor windows runs a long painted panel bearing the inscription in low relief: "SUBSCRIPTION ROOMS. ANNO 1814."

Inside, the ground floor has 6-panel doors to flanking rooms and an entrance hall with incised panelled reveals to the stairhall arch and moulded cornice. A dogleg staircase features open-string stone stairs with cast-iron angular balusters and a moulded handrail wreathed at its foot. The stair hall contains a blocked rosette light in a moulded surround, partly obscured by later inserted walls.

The first floor is occupied by a full-width Assembly Room, entered through 3-leaf folding doors of raised-and-fielded panels in an incised panelled reveal. The door and window architraves incorporate roundels within the mouldings and lions' heads at the angles. Window reveals are splayed and panelled beneath pediments enriched with anthemion detail. The room retains its moulded skirting, dado rail, hanging rail enriched with guttae, and cornice decorated with lions' heads.

The Milton Rooms is a 2-storey building with attic storey and gabled front, constructed of orange-red brick in English bond on an ashlar plinth. It features ashlar raised and chamfered quoins and dressings, with a pantile roof. The front comprises 3 full centre bays between flanking half bays, the centre section quoined and breaking forward.

A central 1-storey portico of 3 flat arches on square-section piers with imposts sits beneath a modillion cornice and balustraded parapet. Within the portico are 3 pairs of panelled double doors in chamfered architraves with a full-width impost band. The first floor centre contains 3 tall grouped windows in raised surrounds, the centre one keyed and fitted with margin-glazed lights in metal frames. This central window incorporates glazed double doors opening onto a balcony formed by the portico roof. The balcony parapet features bulbous balusters interrupted by square piers; the corner piers support spherical light fittings on tall pedestals. An eaves band, mutule cornice and shallow parapet cross the centre bays, with the cornice returning at each end as a raised eaves band across the flanking half bays. A lozenge-shaped light with crossed glazing bars appears in the coped gable end.

The left and right returns contain 6 full-height margin-glazed windows in metal frames beneath flat arches of gauged brick.

The interior fittings of the Milton Rooms survive complete. A staircase at each end of the foyer rises from basement to balcony above the hall end, comprising open-string stone stairs cantilevered around a well with wrought-iron balustrade of anthemion panels and a serpentine moulded handrail. Margin-glazed inner double doors in panelled reveals provide access to the hall. The hall features a rectangular fasciated proscenium arch to the stage, tapered half-lantern wall lights, and a coffered ceiling with diamond lattice vents.

The Masonic Temple, positioned at the rear of the Assembly Rooms and beneath the stage of the Milton Rooms, was not inspected.