Building record MDR16143 - Façade of the former Derby Assembly Rooms, Crich Tramway Museum, Crich

The grade II listed re-erected facade of the Derby Assembly Rooms, which was originally built in 1752-5. It has been tentatively attributed to Washington Shirley, fifth Earl Ferrers, with Joseph Pickford of Derby the contractor. It is built of ashlar gritstone, with chamfered rustication to the basement. It has a five-bay front with a raised pedimented three-bay centre, above a basement. The outer two bays of the basement have semi-circular headed double doorways, with voussoirs in chamfer rusticated ashlar. The central doorway has a Gibbs surround flanked by glazing bar sashes with voussoirs to the heads. The first floor openings have moulded and eared architraves and pulvinated friezes; bays 2 and 4 with scrolled brackets supporting segmental pediments, and bays 1 and 5 with plain pediments. The central bay has a dentilled pediment and attached columns with Ionic capitals. All have glazing bar sashes. There is an ashlar band below the first floor openings, with balustrades to the central three openings, and to the parapets to bays 1 and 5, which have square terminal piers and banded ball finials. There are also three attic wheel lights in square openings with eared architraves below a pediment with a 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. (1)