Old Assembly Rooms, Fort Street, Douglas, Isle of Man, 1932-34 (b/w photo)

On the back of this photograph John James Frowde writes, "Back in Fort St. The 'Old Assembly Rooms', with the 'Flemish' type of house beyond. In the early years of the last century these Assembly Rooms were the resort of the rank and fashion resident in Woodhouse Terrace, the South Quay, Bigwell Street and Shaw's Broogh, then suburbs of the early town. There was no sanitary authority, no drainage, no public water supply, other than from wells, and these few, and providing supplies by the bucket at a /half/ penny, and for the 'well to do', two cansful for the same figure. Garbage was deposited in the streets, - and left there. One can envisage the Grandes dames, in the silks and satins, arriving in sedan chairs at this unsavoury area for 'routs' or balls at that period. No streets were lighted, so when they stepped into their chairs in the early morn, one might suppose that they had 'link-boys' to accompany them. The good old times. (Sedan chairs were in use in Douglas later than 1830, when they had long been museum pieces across the water. Rev W T Radcliffe, 1886, Lecture I attended)."