OLD ASSEMBLY ROOM

OLD ASSEMBLY ROOM, SHAW STREET

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1390155
Date first listed:: 22-May-1954
List Entry Name:: OLD ASSEMBLY ROOM
Statutory Address:: OLD ASSEMBLY ROOM, SHAW STREET

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1390155
Date first listed:: 22-May-1954
Date of most recent amendment:: 12-Jun-2001
List Entry Name:: OLD ASSEMBLY ROOM
Statutory Address 1:: OLD ASSEMBLY ROOM, SHAW STREET

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: OLD ASSEMBLY ROOM, SHAW STREET

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Worcestershire
District:: Worcester (District Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SO 84899 55155

Details

WORCESTER

SO8455SE SHAW STREET 620-1/12/517 (North side) 22/05/54 Old Assembly Room (Formerly Listed as: SHAW STREET Old Assembly Room, (formerly belonging to the Hop Pole Inn))

GV II*

Assembly rooms with (originally) coach house and stables below. c1749 with later alterations, those of 1840 when new entrance was formed on the south side and staircase inserted; probably later C19 addition of stack and infilling of ground floor; with restorations by Nick Joyce c1994-5. Brick to ground-floor and to upper north and east elevations, Otherwise first floor timber-framed to south and east with pebble-dash rendered onto timber lath at south and weather-boarding to west, timber cornice and ashlar imposts, plain tile roof and truncated external stack at left. PLAN AND EXTERIOR: ground floor has round-arched arcade with off-centre right single-storey porch; jettied first floor, a single room. 2 storeys, 6 first-floor windows. Ground floor has 4 round-arched openings with imposts, fifth opening now blocked then segmental arch and within a 4-panel door, brick buttress, further segmental-arched opening, now part-blocked. Prominent jetty has external moulded band. First floor has 6/6 sash, Venetian window with central 6/6 sash with radial glazing bars to head between 4/4 sashes, then 6/6 sash, similar Venetian window and 6/6 sash, all in flush frames. Modillion cornice. INTERIOR: assembly room is approximately 19 x 6 metres (60 x 20 feet), lined throughout with heavy rich bolection moulded panelling above moulded dado rail, divided into bays by fluted Doric pilasters surmounted by renewed continuous frieze and cornice and deep coving. North wall has 2 projecting chimneypieces flanked by Doric pilasters, the westernmost fireplace is blocked, the easternmost chimneypiece has bold egg and flower moulding, frieze and cornice with eared and shouldered overmantel with broken pediment, grate has pineapple motif. Inserted timber staircase apparently replacing Victorian staircase between fireplaces. South wall punctuated by fenestration which interrupts dado rail; pilasters to either side of Venetian windows. East and west ends of room have similar entrances, that to west fitted such that the doors would never open, that to east restored and now blind: to either side are full-height pilasters on plinths, at west are double round-arched doors with upper glazing with thick glazing bars and contemporary 'Vauxhall' mirror plates, in moulded architraves on pilaster responds and with corbel keystone; both entrances have surrounds with paired Ionic pilasters and modillion pediments, that to west is open. The west end incorporated a musicians' gallery hidden behind the panelling, which was hinged outwards; several balusters survive internally and the handrail, decoratively moulded to face the Assembly Room, plain to other side, although the external platform no longer exists (see below). Ground floor retains fireplace (below westernmost on north wall) with elliptical arch and cast-iron grate. Further inserted fireplace to west end has plain surround and keystone. HISTORICAL NOTE: the original date of the assembly rooms is not known, but the structure was attached to the Hop Pole Hotel, built 1749 and Assemblies were known to have been held there by 1757. Access to the assembly room was at first floor level only, from the east end via a small anteroom (probably now incorporated into the present attached brick structure). The alterations of 1840 were brought about when the former Hop Pole Hotel relocated to a site opposite. Berrows Worcester Journal (1757) refers to this as 'the Great-Room at the Hop-Pole'. The 'History of Worcester' (1816) in enumerating the amenities of the City, ends by stating that besides the Theatre and Library and the Assemblies under the patronage of the Nobility and Gentry at the Guild Hall 'public and private concerns are held principally at the Hop Pole Inn, where there is a large and commodious room purposely appropriated for such amusements'. The musicians' gallery was uncovered during restorations of 1994-5 when the west end stack was taken down; the gallery is 3.2 metres in width and is positioned centrally between the two pilasters. Any further evidence must have been removed during the C19. When not in use, he gallery could be concealed behind the wall panelling, the upper part of which is hinged upwards into the gallery space, whilst two leaves over the handrail were designed to lift out. A similar arrangement survives at the Royal Oak Hotel Assembly Rooms, South Street, Leominster (qv). Among the finest mid-C18 inn assembly rooms surviving in England. Forms a group with Berkeley's Hospital, The Foregate (qv) and with Nos 3 and 4 Shaw Street (qv). NMR photographs. (Joyce N: Assembly Rooms: Shaw Street. Report ... for English Heritage: 1994-; Berrows Worcester Journal: 19 May 1757).

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 489125
Legacy System:: LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.