Listed Building: FACADE OF THE FORMER DERBY ASSEMBLY ROOMS AT THE NATIONAL TRAMWAY MUSEUM (1109201)

Re-erected facade of the Derby Assembly Rooms 1752-5. Tentatively attributed to Washington Shirley, fifth Earl Ferrers, with Joseph Pickford of Derby the contractor. Ashlar gritstone, with chamfered rustication to basement. Five bay front with raised pedimented three bay centre, above a basement. Outer two bays of basement with semi-circular headed double doorways, with voussoirs in chamfer rusticated ashlar. Central doorway with Gibbs surround flanked by glazing bar sashes with voussoirs to heads. First floor openings with moulded and eared architraves, pulvinated friezes, bays 2 and 4 with scrolled brackets supporting setmental pediments, bays 1 and 5 with plain pediments. Central bay with dentilled pediment and attached columns with Ionic capitals. Glazing bar sashes. Ashlar band below first floor openings, with balustrades to central three openings, and to the parapets to bays 1 and 5, which have square terminal piers and banded ball finials. Three attic wheel lights in square openings with eared architraves below pediment with carved tympanum. The Assembly Rooms were damaged by fire in 1963, and the facade erected on the site of the National Tramway Museum in Crich in the early 1970s. A plaque on the front of the facade marks the rebuilding and official opening by HRH The Duke of Gloucester, Patron of the Tramway Museum Society, in 1976.