The Lyric Rooms

From a Victorian public house to a silent cinema to a Masonic dining room built by the hands of its own members, the Lyric Rooms is one of Ashby's most storied buildings, and the beating social heart of our Lodge.

Over a century of history on one street

The building at 17 Lower Church Street has been many things across its long life. Originally a public house — the Wagon & Horses — it was converted into one of Ashby's first cinemas around 1910–1912, known as the Lyric Picture Palace. With a small balcony, a stage, and a pine ceiling that still survives to this day, it brought the magic of the moving image to the people of Ashby.

The Lyric operated as a cinema until the late 1920s, likely closing after the larger Picture House opened on the high street in 1925. For decades the building served as a warehouse, its former glory dimmed but its bones intact. It would take the determination and sweat of Ashby's Freemasons to restore it to its finest purpose yet.

Built by the brothers who use it

By the 1970s, both Ferrers & Ivanhoe Lodge and the newly formed Hastings Lodge No. 8695 were outgrowing their home in the Town Hall. In 1978, W. Bro. David R.L. Hall identified two adjacent buildings on Lower Church Street, the former Blue and Green Coat School and the disused Lyric Cinema, as a remarkable opportunity. He purchased both buildings and set a vision in motion.

Renovation of the old schoolroom into a Lodge Room began in 1980. What followed was something remarkable: groups of Freemasons, "operative masons" in the truest sense of the phrase, gave up their weekends, rolled up their sleeves, and built it themselves. Expert help was drafted in where needed, but the spirit of the project was one of brotherhood and collective endeavour.

The Lodge Room was completed and consecrated by the Provincial Grand Master R.W. Gayton Taylor in November 1981. Attention then turned to the former cinema next door, the Lyric Rooms project had begun.

W. Bro. Len Hill took on the unofficial role of foreman, and members of both Hastings Lodge and Ferrers & Ivanhoe spent countless weekends transforming the old cinema into a dining facility. The project was ambitious, perhaps too ambitious. Final costs exceeded the original estimate by 360%, requiring years of fundraising: whist drives, fashion shows, buffet suppers, and the legendary annual Fork Luncheon held at W. Bro. David Hall's house and garden in Packington.

From pub to cinema to Masonic dining room