Queens Cinema

The Queens Cinema, later a Mecca Bingo Club, was built in 1912-13 for the Ellesmere Port Picture Palace Company. The building is constructed of stock brick, rendered and painted to the front, and has a hipped roof. It features a double-height auditorium with a balcony, accessed through a small foyer.

The two-storey entrance front is arranged as a screen to the auditorium, which projects forward, creating a foyer block with return walls treated as canted angles. Three pilasters are located on each angled flank, marking changes in direction. The screen wall terminates in a pilaster topped with an urn finial. The lower storey is channelled rusticated, while the upper storey is designed to resemble ashlar. There is a late 20th-century canopy over the twin entrance doors. The upper storey has two windows between pilasters in the canted angle section, while the three windows over the entrance are currently obscured by a hoarding. A continuous frieze sits above a modillioned cornice, which breaks into a semi-circular pediment over the entrance, bearing a baroque cartouche displaying the completion date: 1913. A single-storey screen wall of channelled rustication extends along the right flank. A hipped roof is visible above the canted angle section.

The small foyer features a cornice with ovolo moulding and a circular central decoration with bay leaf moulding. A narrow staircase on the left leads to a small upper foyer for the balcony. The double-height auditorium is divided into bays by pilasters, extending above the cornice (which also features ovolo mouldings) to form plaster arches with bay leaf decoration on their outer faces. The arches are cut back above the balcony to allow for headroom. Plaster roundels are present in the ceiling around ventilation outlets. A string moulding provides classical regularity, positioned towards the top of the walls, while a dado rail corresponds with the raked, now stepped, floor. A straight-fronted balcony is located at the rear, featuring panelled decoration. A late 20th-century proscenium arch has chamfers on its corners.

The building is a well-preserved example of an early cinema, retaining many original details, with a particularly notable fine neo-baroque facade. Films were last shown around 1968.