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Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...
and
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, assembly rooms were gathering places for members of the higher social classes open to members of both sexes. At that time most entertaining was done at home and there were few public places of entertainment open to both sexes besides theatres (and there were few of those outside London).
Upper class Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status, usually are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper class is gen ...
men had more options, including
coffee house A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non- ...
s and later gentlemen's clubs. Major sets of assembly rooms in London, in
spa town A spa town is a resort town based on a mineral spa (a developed mineral spring). Patrons visit spas to "take the waters" for their purported health benefits. Thomas Guidott set up a medical practice in the English town of Bath in 1668. He ...
s such as Bath, and in important provincial cities such as
York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
, were able to accommodate hundreds, or in some cases over a thousand people for events such as masquerade balls (masked balls), assembly balls ( conventional balls), public concerts and assemblies (simply gatherings for conversation, perhaps with incidental music and entertainments) or Salons. By later standards these were formal events: the attendees were usually screened to make sure no one of insufficient rank gained admittance; admission might be subscription only; and unmarried women were chaperoned. Nonetheless, assemblies played an important part in the marriage market of the day. A major set of assembly rooms consisted of a main room and several smaller subsidiary rooms such as card rooms, tea rooms and supper rooms. On the other hand, in smaller towns a single large room attached to the best inn might serve for the occasional assembly for the local landed gentry. Formal assemblies and the associated assembly rooms faded away in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the range of places of public entertainment increased (for example public dance halls and nightclubs) and attitudes became more accepting of women from the higher social classes attending them. Also to some extent they were supplanted by the ballrooms of major hotels as British hotels became larger from the railway age onwards.


Examples


England

*London **
Almack's Almack's was the name of a number of establishments and social clubs in London between the 18th and 20th centuries. Two of the social clubs would go on to fame as Brooks's and Boodle's. Almack's most famous establishment was based in assembly roo ...
- London's most exclusive assembly rooms. ** The Pantheon - an architecturally grander but more briefly fashionable set of assembly rooms in London. * Bath Assembly Rooms - the assembly rooms in England's most fashionable spa. * The Lower Assembly Rooms, Bath, demolished in 1933. *
Assembly Rooms, Boston, Lincolnshire Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an ...
* Victoria Rooms (Bristol). * Athenaeum, Bury St Edmunds. *
Buxton Crescent Buxton Crescent is a Grade-I-listed building in the town of Buxton, Derbyshire, England. It owes much to the Royal Crescent in Bath, but has been described by the Royal Institution of British Architects as "more richly decorated and altogether m ...
, the centre of the crescent contains the town's assembly rooms. * Shire Hall, Hertford. *
Wellington Rooms, Liverpool The Wellington Rooms, also known as the former Irish Centre, is a Regency building in Liverpool, England. Designed as assembly rooms, the building is situated on Mount Pleasant, close to Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. The building has been ...
. *
Assembly Rooms, Ludlow Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...
. * Assembly Rooms, Newcastle - built in 1776 in
Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...
, one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture in Newcastle's
Grainger Town Grainger Town is the historic commercial centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Incorporating classical streets built by Richard Grainger, a builder and developer, between 1824 and 1841, some of Newcastle's finest buildings and streets lie w ...
. * Newark Town Hall, the 18th century town hall included the assembly rooms within the building. *
Assembly House The Assembly House is a Georgian architecture, Georgian Grade I listed building located in Norwich, United Kingdom. Today, the Assembly House is used for conferences, exhibitions, visual and performing arts activities, and weddings, and is owne ...
,
Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
. * Lion Hotel, Shrewsbury contained the town's assembly rooms. * Assembly Rooms, Surbiton in Surbiton, Surrey. * York Assembly Rooms - a notable building designed by
Lord Burlington Earl of Burlington is a title that has been created twice, the first time in the Peerage of England in 1664 and the second in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1831. Since 1858, Earl of Burlington has been a courtesy title used by the duk ...
. * Assembly Rooms, Leeds


Scotland

* Music Hall Aberdeen * Dumfries Assembly rooms, c. 1825 - elegant building by Walter Newall, Architect, of Dumfries *
Assembly Rooms (Edinburgh) The Assembly Rooms are meeting halls in central Edinburgh, Scotland. Originally solely a meeting place for social gatherings, it is now also used as an arts venue and for public events, including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Hogmanay cel ...
* New Assembly and Concert Rooms, 1796,
Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
, later the home of the
Athenaeum Athenaeum may refer to: Books and periodicals * ''Athenaeum'' (German magazine), a journal of German Romanticism, established 1798 * ''Athenaeum'' (British magazine), a weekly London literary magazine 1828–1921 * ''The Athenaeum'' (Acadia U ...
(demolished by new owners, the General Post Office, in 1892)


Public gardens

London also had a number of outdoor "public gardens" where similar entertainments took place. They were more commercial establishments and tended to have less exclusive rules on admission. Each had at least one major indoor space for balls and the like. See:
Marylebone Gardens Marylebone Gardens or Marybone Gardens was a London pleasure garden sited in the grounds of the old manor house of Marylebone and frequented from the mid-17th century, when Marylebone was a village separated from London by fields and market ga ...
,
Vauxhall Gardens Vauxhall Gardens is a public park in Kennington in the London Borough of Lambeth, England, on the south bank of the River Thames. Originally known as New Spring Gardens, it is believed to have opened before the Restoration of 1660, being ...
,
Ranelagh Gardens Ranelagh Gardens (; alternative spellings include Ranelegh and Ranleigh, the latter reflecting the English pronunciation) were public pleasure gardens located in Chelsea, then just outside London, England, in the 18th century. History The R ...
and Cremorne Gardens.


See also

*
Assembly hall An assembly hall is a hall to hold public meetings or meetings of an organization such as a school, church, or deliberative assembly. An example of the last case is the Assembly Hall (Washington, Mississippi) where the general assembly of the st ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Assembly Rooms Leeds Blue Plaques