The Assembly House

Thomas Ivory, the Norwich builder-architect, raised the Assembly House on Theatre Street in the mid-1750s, on ground once held by the medieval college of St Mary in the Fields. It was made for the sociable business of a Georgian county capital — balls, card parties, subscription concerts — and its long suite of rooms was arranged for exactly that traffic. Fire gutted the interior in 1995; the restoration that followed brought back the plasterwork and returned the building to public use. Recitals and chamber concerts are given in its music room and ballroom, and the house remains one of the pleasantest small rooms in the city to hear anything in.