The Empire Theatre

The Empire Theatre is a theatre dating from 1906-7, designed by W and TR Milburn, with a circa 1989 rear upper bar extension. It is located in Sunderland. The front building is constructed of ashlar, the rear auditorium and lobbies of brick with ashlar dressing. A copper dome and slate roof complete the exterior. The building is in a Free Baroque style and arranged in an L-shape.

The main front has two windows on High Street West, with a three-storey corner entrance tower. The ground floor at the left has a box office entrance and shop front. Above this is a wide, tripartite, round-headed window with upper glazing bars within an architrave. A canted corner features a narrow first-floor window with upper glazing bars. The corner tower has paired Ionic columns supporting a ground floor entablature with a dentilled frieze. Long panels run through the upper stages, with keyed oeil-de-boeuf windows below cornices on the first floor. Aproned moulded sills feature on the second floor, with small lights under swags and lions' heads. A modillioned cornice sits above a balustraded parapet, which is interrupted by the continuation of panels through to round-headed dormers containing oeil-de-boeuf windows under long keystones extending to a moulded round cornice. The ribbed dome supports a lantern with four angled pairs of Ionic columns framing niches, topped by an open-work sphere supporting a statue (a replica; the original is inside the theatre) of Terpsichore. The right return has a Venetian first-floor window. A plaque commemorates the laying of the foundation stone by Vesta Tilley on September 29th, 1906.

The interior retains much rich Baroque detail. The main entrance leads to a circular lobby with painted classical scenes and a terrazzo floor. The auditorium is wide with two curved balconies; the lower balcony has side arcades to stairs ascending to the upper balcony. Boxes project as round turrets at the second-balcony level, with paired Ionic columns supporting balustraded and moulded cupolas with gabled dormers. A rectangular proscenium arch features a central, raised tablet. A ribbed, coved ceiling is decorated with stucco in a Baroque style. All balconies have richly moulded fronts. The interior is remarkably unaltered and has been carefully restored.