The Empire

THE EMPIRE

Theatre, now amusement arcade. Built in 1896, enlarged and refurbished in 1900; subject to unsympathetic alterations in the later 20th century. Red brick in Flemish bond with sandstone ashlar dressings, colourwashed, beneath a Welsh slate roof. Timber arcade with iron balcony. Rectangular on plan with a rear entrance to Dolphin Street.

The main front faces Alexandra Road: three storeys with seven bays in a symmetrical composition. A full-length ground-floor pavement arcade (largely rebuilt in the 20th century) carries a first-floor balcony with plain wooden piers, basket arches, and plain cast-iron balcony railings. The ground floor retains a central basket-arched chamfered entrance with alternating plain and moulded ashlar voussoirs and a foliate keystone; the flanking sections were remodelled around 1970.

The upper floors preserve original details: projecting octagonal buttresses at the left and right angles and flanking a central gabled bay, with pilaster buttresses between the side bays. The first floor has a full-length series of windows with 20th-century blocking or inserted glazing beneath original ornate ashlar lintels featuring panelled friezes, foliate consoles and scrolled pediments. A flush ashlar band runs at lintel level, with foliate relief panels to the buttresses. A raised moulded name plaque appears above the central first-floor window.

The second floor contains a central round-headed window with delicate radial glazing bars, moulded capitals, archivolt and fluted pedimented keystone, flanked by an ashlar stringcourse. The side bays have windows with moulded sills and lintels with consoles and flat hoods; a flush ashlar band at lintel level bears foliate relief panels to the buttresses. A moulded ashlar stringcourse, dentilled brick frieze and moulded eaves cornice complete the composition.

The octagonal buttresses at each end and flanking the central gable project as short turrets topped with ornate onion domes and miniature cupolas with finials. The central coped shaped gable features a moulded slit light, stringcourse and segmental pediment with shell moulding and ball finial. Moulded brick-coped gables and paired axial stacks and paired end stacks with moulded stringcourses complete the roofline. The right return bears remains of a painted inscription reading "THE EMPIRE".

The rear elevation to Dolphin Street comprises a three-storey, six-bay section with recessed outer bays flanking two central bays. Five segmental-arched basement windows and a door to the right beneath a segmental arch are present, together with four second-floor sashes and a hipped roof.

The interior has been substantially altered. The ground floor has been largely stripped or obscured by later partitions, with the stage boarded-in. The stairhall and gallery entrances retain original staircases with basket-arched openings on moulded capitals, plaster panelling to walls with Adam-style plasterwork friezes and ornate moulded ceilings.

The auditorium features a full gallery around three sides. The side ranges contain arcades of square timber columns with moulded arch braces to hammer beams carrying basket-arched roof trusses and a boarded upper ceiling with ornate cast-iron ventilator grilles. An ornate gilt carved wood and plasterwork proscenium arch displays fluted Composite pilasters with tapered Ionic pilasters above, flanking a wide basket arch with foliate and ribbed mouldings and foliate spandrels beneath a moulded cornice. The lower section of the stage arch has been removed or obscured and was not fully investigated at the time of survey.

The building was constructed at a cost of £14,500 and opened in May 1896 as the Alexandra Hall Theatre. It was refurbished by M. Auguste Van Biene in 1900 to become the Empire Theatre. The theatre closed in 1960. It formed part of the well-established national seaside resort entertainments circuit and still retains much of its early 20th-century character.