Old Assembly Room

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

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