Built in 1833, the Sub rooms immediately offered Stroud a large assembly room on the first floor for balls, lectures and political meetings and later, theatrical performances.

On the floor below there was a library and reading room, which later became a social club known as the Stroud Club.

History has it that one night, a drunken farmer set off home from the Swan Inn. At that time a series of scaffolds forming a ramp had been constructed to carry materials to the roof of the Subscription rooms, then being built. The farmer rode up the ramp to the top on his obedient horse. The realisation must have been quite a shock! The farmer survived but his poor creature fell and died!