A Subscription Token for the Assembly Rooms

Dear Ladies,

As Autumn approaches we may look forward to the many delights of the Assembly Rooms at the Rose & Crown Inn. Musical evenings, Balls and Salons where we enjoy the pleasure in one another’s conversation, are among the calendar of events for an assembly room. In order to attend these special evenings one must possess a ticket for a specific event or a subscription which is valid for one season. Patrons who frequented the assembly rooms would pay their annual subscription fee and were issued a token to present at the events one attended in order to gain entry. These tokens were usually round with the name of the establishment and the season in which the token is valid printed on them. On average these discs were 2 – 3 inches (5 – 71/2 cm) in size and made of card, wood, leather, pottery or other sturdy materials. They were small enough to fit into one’s reticule, or pocket if you were a gentleman and some tokens were fashioned with a hole punched at the top so that they may have a cord, chain or ribbon passed through them making it easy to slip over one’s wrist for safekeeping. For this swap we shall create our subscription disc for this season at the Rose & Crown Assembly Rooms. The year 1782-83 shall be used for our purposes. Your disc may be made of whatever material you feel most comfortable using and you may be as creative as you like in fashioning your disc as long as it is with the Georgian/Regency Era in mind. We will have one partner and to that partner we shall send the subscription disc as well as a note, in character if you are so inclined.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any queries, and most of all have fun.