Empire Mecca Social Club

Empire Mecca Social Club

This is a theatre designed by Ernest Runtz of London between 1896 and 1899, located on the south side of Corporation Road in Middlesbrough. Now used as a social club, it was formerly known as the Palace of Varieties.

The building is constructed as a steel frame with terracotta facings by Doulton & Co., painted below a mid-twentieth-century canopy. The rear is faced in brick. The roof features Lakeland slate at the front, Welsh slate at the rear, and lead-clad domes. The main auditorium has a largely flat roof.

The architecture is in the Spanish Baroque style. The facade is dominated by four-stage towers, each with one bay, flanking a two-storey centre with a mezzanine. A continuous moulded plinth runs across the base. The centre has four doors—some blocked, others renewed—beneath lintels with enriched cartouches and paired segment-headed overlights, set in enriched pilaster surrounds with continuous cornice. A mid-twentieth-century canopy is suspended from iron ties and cuts across the lintels and towers, extending along the returns.

A renewed fascia sign fills the mezzanine level, flanked by colonnettes with tulip feet to the shafts and scrolled flame finials. The first floor is slightly recessed and comprises one plus five plus one bays. The middle bays have renewed round-headed windows with keyed archivolts and balustraded aprons. Enriched quasi-Composite columns on pedestals stand between the bays, with continuous shallow frieze and cornice and inverted consoles. The blind end bays display enriched bas-relief escutcheons. A rendered brick oversailing band sits below a straight parapet bearing late-twentieth-century applied illuminated letters. Behind this rises a steeply pitched roof.

Each tower contains a two-light window with column mullion below the canopy. Higher up, a square window is set within an applied Composite pedimented aedicule with enriched frieze and continuous cornices, positioned in the second stage. On the third stage, a sculptured phoenix clasps the outer corner. An oversailing band on enriched consoles separates the third and fourth stages. The fourth stage has paired rectangular windows under an enriched escutcheon, flanked by plain pilaster strips. The top of the fourth stage features chamfered angles. A cornice and scalloped parapet with ornamented finials on pedestals complete the towers.

The domed octagonal lanterns have paired blocked round-headed windows with moulded imposts on each face of the drum. Ramped and scroll-topped diagonal buttresses rise on the drum. A moulded modillion cornice and vase finial with flagpole crown the structure. The returns are similarly detailed, with a nine-bay first floor; the ground floor of the right return has been altered.

Interior

The foyer comprises three bays with marble engaged Roman Doric columns, carrying egg-and-dart capitals through a deep rinceau-enriched frieze to a heavily moulded panelled ceiling.

The auditorium features a two-tier horseshoe-plan gallery and circle with raked seating, the gallery seating having been renewed. Elliptical-fronted dress boxes have basket-headed openings with enriched panelled responds and intrados, recessed behind quasi-Roman Doric columns on the lower level and fluted Ionic columns above. The top entablature sits under an enriched escutcheon. These boxes are supported on giant scrolled brackets. The ceiling is heavily moulded and corniced, divided into geometric patterns by richly-ornamented ribs. A central gas lighting burner is suspended from brattishing and screens a ventilation shaft. The gallery, circle and box fronts, chamfered proscenium arch and ceiling are enriched with rinceau, cherubs, escutcheons and trophies of musical instruments.

A three-bay panelled basket-arcaded saloon sits behind a Roman Doric screen and adjoins the gallery at the front of the house.