Former Picture House Cinema

Former Picture House Cinema

A cine-variety theatre built in 1912 on the site of a mid-19th century Temperance Hall, now an amusement arcade. The building is constructed of red brick with painted ashlar and faience dressings, and features a pantile-clad gablet roof. It has a sub-rectangular plan, aligned roughly east-north-east to west-south-west, with its front elevation positioned at the south-western end facing onto Quay Road.

The front elevation is a striking two-storey Baroque-style façade spanning three and a half bays in width. The ground floor is a plain band of rusticated ashlar, raised on an ashlar stone plinth. The first floor is built of painted ashlar blocks with a plain frieze dentil cornice and a parapet wall above with shallow fair-faced brick wall returns. A garlanded scroll motif occupies the centre of the balustrade, and the cornice forms a segmental arch over the central bay. This central bay is flanked by over-painted pale green faience and fluted Corinthian pilasters. The ground floor of the central bay contains the main entrance, approached by two steps, consisting of a pair of outward-opening glazed half-moon double doors with fielded panels beneath a boarded-over fanlight, set in a recessed depressed arch with flaming torch motif spandrels. Scroll brackets support a name panel above with a plain frieze and dentil cornice, mounting a modern illuminated sign which may obscure an original cinema name or date stone. The two end bays have recessed ground-floor panels beneath moulded keyed round arches containing blocked circular window recesses, each with a scroll bracket at the base enclosed by garlanded swags, with two-light windows to the first floor. The ends of the cornice are supported by plain pilasters extending down to first-floor window sill level and supported on double scroll brackets. The right-hand half bay end is occupied by a fire door with a single-panel window above. The first floor features a central bow window with four obscured glass panels, a decorated foliate faience plinth, and a canopy with a pulvinated frieze.

The rear and side elevations are two-storey fair-faced brick construction. The rear north-eastern wall has a pair of blocked window positions to the first floor and a pair of fire doors to the ground floor. The north-western side elevation is plain and partially painted with no openings, abutting 256 Quay Road. The south-eastern side elevation comprises a tall secondary five-bay fair-faced brick pier and panel wall, with the fifth bay obscured by 248 Quay Road.

The interior comprises an entrance foyer with a rectangular plan formerly occupied by a ticket booth and concessions stand. It has a low plain ceiling with a pair of square columns either side of the thoroughfare, leading to a glazed half-moon double auditorium door. Dog-leg staircases rise at either side of the foyer: the right rises to the first-floor circle foyer and the left functioned as an exit down from the circle.

The circle foyer is a relatively small rectangular space at the head of the stairway. A door immediately to the right leads to a narrow L-plan foyer spanning the full width of the building to the rear of the circle, while straight ahead a door gives access to modern toilet facilities. A doorway on the left allows access to the circle, now devoid of seating and used as a store. The three-facetted balcony front is decorated with simple moulding visible only from the auditorium. An exit door is situated at the north-western corner of the circle.

The auditorium is a large rectangular-plan space originally intended to seat 400 persons in the stalls and circle balcony. Now used as an amusement arcade and café, it retains a proscenium arch, though the screen, stage, cinema organ, and all seating have been removed. The stalls area is occupied by gaming slot machines and the former stage area by a café with modern tables and bench seating. A suspended ceiling has been inserted at the level of the circle balcony front, obscuring the original ceiling from the auditorium. The wing stage right acts as a storeroom and fire exit; the wing stage left functions as kitchen and fire exit. A doorway in the south-western wall of the kitchen connects to a stair lobby rising to a former first-floor changing room now used as an office, and gives access to two ground-floor storerooms running parallel to the auditorium. An emergency exit set centrally in the south-eastern auditorium wall gives access to a smaller storeroom with a doorway opening into the fire escape lobby leading onto Quay Road. The four-bay auditorium ceiling, visible from the circle, takes the form of a segmental arch supported by reinforced concrete arch ribs with moulded sides and fruited foliate decorative plasterwork in relief on the base. The second bay of the ceiling over the circle has a decorative plaster ventilation panel. Truncated fragments of a heavily moulded plaster cornice remain visible either side of the proscenium arch, and a modern ventilation panel has been inserted through the wall above the proscenium arch.