Former Assembly Rooms of Music & Drama, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion

Entry Name: Former Assembly Rooms of Music & Drama

Listing Date: 21 July 1961

Last Amended: 24 November 1987

Grade: II*

Source: Cadw

Source ID: 10242

Building Class: Education

Also known as: Old Assembly Rooms, Laura Place, Aberystwyth

ID on this website: 300010242

Location: At the W end of the street with rear elevation overlooking Laura Place and the Parish Church.

County: Ceredigion

Community: Aberystwyth

Built-Up Area: Aberystwyth

Traditional County: Cardiganshire

Tagged with: Assembly room

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History

Opened July 1820; enlarged ca 1829/30. By G S Repton at a cost of £2,000. Built at the instigation of W E Powell of Nanteos to serve as a meeting place for the fashionable and wealthy people who began visiting Aberystwyth in the early C19. Later served as a temporary home for the National Library of Wales and was in 1923 internally remodelled by Messrs Barrett and McGregor Wood to be used as the College Union (later the Student's Union). Now part of the University Music Department.

Exterior

Rectangular double pile plan. Symmetrical 2-storey and basement, 3-window lightly scribed stucco front (S side) with band course and plinth, twin hipped slate roofs, wide bracket eaves and rubble chimney stack. Small pane sash windows, to ground floor with arched heads and set in stepped recesses flanking central plain porch (added 1829/30) with arched entrance; double panelled doors below traceried fanlight. Railings either side of the porch, to the right with steps down to the basement. Low walls continue at either end, with corner piers and blocked doorways, screening small enclosed courtyards (1829/30). Behind are 2-storey. Similar ranges set in the slope with asymmetrically spaced sash windows, terminating in advanced gable ends with pediment treatment on the rear elevation.

2-storey, 5-bay rear (N) stucco front with plinth and channelled ground floor below band course. Wide bracket eaves, higher over central bays with glazed arched heads to tall tripartite small pane sash windows lighting the Parry Hall. Square headed similar windows to outer bays and to stepped down ground floor entered by central half glazed doors.

Interior

Originally the building comprised "Assembly and Promenade Room", a card room, billiards room and "Refreshment Room", the first of which now forms the Joseph Parry Hall with 'minstrels gallery' and egg and dart cornice. Alterations to University use.

Reasons for Listing

Group value with listed items in Laura Place, Great Darkgate Street and King Street.

External Links

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.

Recommended Books

Other nearby listed buildings

II* NO.11 Laura Place, Dyfed
To W of the former Assembly Rooms, above and to the S of the Parish church; on sloping ground. At one time the town house and estate office of the Powells of Nanteos.
II* Staff House
9 Laura Place
II* NO.12 Laura Place, Dyfed
To W of the former Assembly Rooms, above and to the S of the Parish church; on sloping ground. At one time the town house and estate office of the Powells of Nanteos.
II Jasper House
Set into a terrace of varied street frontages near the W end of the street.
II* NO.8 Laura Place, Dyfed
8 Laura Place
II Penylan
End of terrace building opposite Assembly Rooms.
II Brynawel
At the W end of the road and detached from the terrace to left.
II* The Rectory
To S of New Street, stepped in the slope overlooking St Michael’s and All Angels Parish Church to W. So named after W E Powell of Nanteos married Laura Phelps.

British Listed Buildings

History in Structure

Former Assembly Rooms of Music & Drama

A Grade II* Listed Building in Aberystwyth, Ceredigion

Coordinates