Description

BRIGHTON

TQ3004SE SHIP STREET
577-1/39/848 (East side)
13/10/52 No.73
Old Ship Assembly Rooms

II*

Assembly rooms. 1767, frontage to Ship Street c1895. Stucco,
roof of tiles. 2 storeys, 2-window range. Ground floor has
flat-arched carriage entrance to right, assembly rooms
entrance to left, and one central broad entrance flanked by 2
narrower ones. First floor has 2 oriel windows with original
glazing; gutters; 3 flat-arched dormers in roof.
INTERIOR: former Assembly Room, now the Regency Room, on the
first floor: 1767 by Robert Golden and decorated in the Adam
style. Flat-arched entrance to Ballroom with architrave,
cornice on consoles, guilloche frieze, and double panelled
doors possibly of original design; facing this, a Palladian
window with fluted Corinthian pilasters and guilloche frieze,
and the cornice element not now visible; in one long wall of
the room, a window bay flanked by fluted Composite columns and
facing it in the other wall, a fireplace in the Adam style
with calyx ornament in the side panels, and fluting and
paterae in the frieze. The walls are panelled above and below
the dado, the upper walls framed by bands of fasces and
bead-and-reel which may belong to the C19; frieze of festoons
and drops; dentil cornice. Segmental-arched ceiling decorated
principally with figure panels, paterae and wreaths of bud
ornament; similar bud ornament to tympana at either end. The
windows now glazed with late-C19 leaded lights having some
panes of stained glass decorated with emblems in the style of
the Aesthetic Movement.
The Ballroom was also designed by Golden in 1767 but the
decorations have been much reworked. 2 flat-arched entrances
with architraves surmounted by a decorative roundel of musical
instruments; stage at one narrow end, now much altered,
gallery at the other carried on 2 marbled Doric columns, with
festoons and drops to the gallery; cantilevered balcony to one
long side of the room between entrances, almost a complete
oval in plan with an iron balcony; the upper walls panelled in
plasters; dentil and modillion cornice, perhaps of 1767; coved
ceiling with 3 roses, all with foliage ornament to the centre,
the outer pair surrounded with calyx ornament perhaps of 1767.
Windows with late C19 leaded lights having some panes of
stained glass decorated with emblems in the style of the
Aesthetic Movement.
The Assembly Rooms were connected with the Old Ship Hotel (not
included), the oldest inn in Brighton and the most important
in its C18 and early C19 history.

Listing NGR: TQ3098004009

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17549690

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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