Hanover Square Rooms

The Hanover Square Rooms or the Queen's Concert Rooms were assembly rooms established, principally for musical performances, on the corner of Hanover Square, London, by Sir John Gallini in partnership with Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich Abel in 1774. For exactly one century this was the principal concert venue in London. The premises were demolished in 1900.

The site had previously been occupied by a mill, hence its previous name Mill Field and that of the currently adjoining Mill Street. Originally the property of Earl of Plymouth, leased out to Lord Dillon, in June 1774 it was sold for £5,000 to Viscount Wenman, who on the same day conveyed it to Gallini, Bach and Abel. Gallini owned half the freehold and each of the other two a quarter. On the site formerly occupied by a garden and office, they constructed, as extensions to the house, assembly rooms for concerts and public meetings. The main room on the first floor measured 79 feet (24 m) by 32 feet (9.8 m), with a height of between 22 and 28 feet (8.5 m): its vaulted ceilings had paintings by the decorative painter Giovanni Battista Cipriani; and Thomas Gainsborough, a friend of Bach and Abel, was commissioned to produce the transparent paintings on glass for the Rooms. In addition there was a small room off the North side of the main room and a larger room on the ground floor beneath it.

The concert hall there, where concerts started under Bach in February 1775, became one of the principal musical venues in London. For these concerts the convention was that "The Ladies' tickets are Black, and the Gentlemen's Red." An entry from April 1776 in the diary of Edward Piggot gives the following description of a concert:

April the 16th, 1776 Lord Fauconbery sent me a ticket for Bach and Abels Concert at the Assembly room in Hanover Square the performers were the two above mentioned, the second played a solo extremely well; the others were Giardini, who plays on the Violin supprising well is Cramer; Crosdill on the Violoncello plays exceeding well, Fischer on the hautboy the same, all Capital performers, Savoi, Grassi & several others sang; Signora Grassi has a supprising voice being a tenor, which is very singular and I think disagreeable. In all about 22 musicians; this concert is reckoned the best in the world, every thing executed with the greatest taste and exactness; a very fine room 115 feet long 40 broad; it was almost full, every body Dressed; very elegantly painted; between the acts they go in another room underneath where you have tea; it is by subscription; it begins at 8 and ends at 10 every thing is elegant.

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