The Subscription Rooms were originally built as Betting Rooms for the gentry, in connection with the races.
The Doncaster Gazette of 25 August 1826 declared “These splendid rooms from the designs of, Woodhead & Hurst, are nearly finished. As a building, it will add much to the effect of the High Street, to which it presents a neat front, with columns and pilasters of the Ionic Order from the small temple on the river Ilissus, at Athens.