Assembly Rooms
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Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
and
Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, assembly rooms were gathering places for members of the higher
social class A social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the working class and the Bourgeoisie, capitalist class. Membership of a social class can for exam ...
es 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, these are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper cla ...
men had more options, including coffee houses and later
gentlemen's club A gentlemen's club is a private social club of a type originally established by males from Britain's upper classes starting in the 17th century. Many countries outside Britain have prominent gentlemen's clubs, mostly those associated with the ...
s. 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, Somerset, Ba ...
s such as
Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...
, and in important provincial cities such as
York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...
, were able to accommodate hundreds, or in some cases over a thousand people for events such as
masquerade ball A masquerade ball (or bal masqué) is a special kind of formal ball which many participants attend in costume wearing masks. (Compare the word "masque"—a formal written and sung court pageant.) Less formal " costume parties" may be a descend ...
s (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 The landed gentry, or the gentry (sometimes collectively known as the squirearchy), is a largely historical Irish and British social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate. It is t ...
. By the 1900s, people became more accepting of women entering public places, and new venues for entertainment arose, such as public dance halls and nightclubs. 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 - 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 Bath Assembly Rooms, designed by John Wood, the Younger in 1769, are a set of assembly rooms located in the heart of the World Heritage Site, World Heritage City of Bath, Somerset, Bath in England which are now open to the public as a visito ...
- the assembly rooms in England's most fashionable spa. * The Lower Assembly Rooms, Bath, demolished in 1933. * Assembly Rooms, Boston, Lincolnshire *
Victoria Rooms (Bristol) The Victoria Rooms, also known as the Vic Rooms, houses the University of Bristol's music department in Clifton, Bristol, England, on a prominent site at the junction of Queens Road and Whiteladies Road. The building, originally assembly room ...
. * Athenaeum, Bury St Edmunds. * Buxton Crescent, the centre of the crescent contains the town's assembly rooms. * Shire Hall, Hertford. * Wellington Rooms, Liverpool. * Assembly Rooms, Ludlow. * Assembly Rooms, Newcastle - built in 1776 in
Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...
, one of the finest examples of
Georgian architecture Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British monarchs of the House of Han ...
in Newcastle's Grainger Town. * Newark Town Hall, the 18th century town hall included the assembly rooms within the building. * Assembly House,
Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of the county of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. It lies by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. The population of the Norwich ...
. * Lion Hotel, Shrewsbury contained the town's assembly rooms. * Assembly Rooms, Surbiton in
Surbiton Surbiton is a suburban neighbourhood in South West London, within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (RBK). It is next to the River Thames, southwest of Charing Cross. Surbiton was in the Historic counties of England, historic county of ...
, Surrey. * York Assembly Rooms - a notable building designed by Lord Burlington. * Assembly Rooms, Leeds * Assembly Rooms Glastonbury


Scotland

* Music Hall Aberdeen *
Dumfries Dumfries ( ; ; from ) is a market town and former royal burgh in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, near the mouth of the River Nith on the Solway Firth, from the Anglo-Scottish border. Dumfries is the county town of the Counties of Scotland, ...
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 Assembly rooms, meeting place for social gatherings, it is now also used as an arts venue and for public events, including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and t ...
* New Assembly and Concert Rooms, 1796,
Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
, later the home of the Athenaeum (demolished by new owners, the
General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Established in England in the 17th century, the GPO was a state monopoly covering the dispatch of items from a specific ...
, in 1892)


Wales

* Cardiff City Hall, which includes the Assembly Rooms on the first floor.


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, Vauxhall Gardens, Ranelagh Gardens and Cremorne Gardens.


References


See also

* Assembly hall {{DEFAULTSORT:Assembly Rooms Leeds Blue Plaques