The backdrop of windows and paintings of William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti was perfect for Simon Heffer's event based round his book The Age of Decadence: Britain 1880 and 1914.
It is one of Scarborough's true gems and a venue with the grafitas the event demanded.
Host and fellow historian Allan Mallinson introduced Heffer and the book and hastened in a discussion of the period - from politics and Disraeli and poverty and opulence to music hall and Marie Lloyd and cricket and football.
It was a heavyweight event - full of intelligent insight and considered observation on past and present - shot through with the light of Heffer's wry humour.