Former National Picture Theatre

Former National Picture Theatre, Beverley Road, Kingston upon Hull

This is a cinema built in 1914, designed by architects Runton and Barry for the De-Luxe Theatre Company. The building is constructed of red brick and stone dressings with a steel-reinforced concrete frame. It is rectangular in plan and originally filled its entire plot, presenting a 12-metre frontage onto Beverley Road and extending back approximately 60 metres.

The facade is ornate red brick and stone in a Baroque revival style, featuring twinned Ionic pilasters that flank the entrance archway. A decorated oculus appears in the outer bays of the facade at a high level.

Behind the facade, the building's interior remains survive in fragmentary form. A reinforced concrete cross-beam once carried the gallery and marks the extent of survival. The vestibule is flanked by lower flights of staircases leading to gallery level, with a ticket office beyond. A foyer extends further back, and it is thought that a mosaic floor survives beneath rubble in this space. To the east of the foyer are the much-damaged lower levels of the manager's office, with stairs to the projection box on one side and stairs to the gallery foyer on the other. East of this are only fragmentary remains of the auditorium, too damaged to hold any architectural significance, though the site retains considerable poignancy.

The building was severely damaged during a Luftwaffe air raid on 18 March 1941. Although 150 people were sheltering in the foyer at the time, no one was killed. The National Picture Theatre is remarkable as one of the rare surviving buildings bombed during the Blitz of World War II and stands as a substantial physical reminder of the Hull Blitz, an event of national and European significance. Hull experienced air raids longer than any other British city, with only 5,945 of its 91,660 houses surviving undamaged. The building's special interest lies in its facade, vestibule and foyer as witnesses to this devastating historical event, and in the particular role cinemas played during wartime as centres for news and entertainment.