The Theatre Royal

SE3406SW BARNSLEY WELLINGTON STREET (west side), 9/75 Barnsley The Theatre Royal 10.6.85 - II Theatre, now Bingo hall. Opened 29th December 1898. By Walter Emden of London, supervised by Herbert Crawshaw. Rock-faced stone with ashlar dressings. Roof not visible. 3 storeys. Classical style. Near-symmetrical 5-bay facade with rusticated ashlar quoins to corners and 3-bay 1st- and 2nd-floor break. Ground floor: chamfered plinth. 5 round-arched entrances with alternately blocked quoins and voussoirs. Doors have fielded panels, pediments and fanlights. 2 similar narrow lights. Elliptical-arched carriage entrance to left with shaped, coped gable and ball finials. Square-headed 1st-floor windows, those to 1st and 5th bays tripartite with swagged friezes. Triangular pediments to bays 1, 3 and 5, segmental pediments to bays 3 and 4. Square-headed 2nd-floor windows. Sashes throughout. Sill bands. Deep frieze, moulded eaves cornice and blocking course. The central break is surmounted by a pediment the tympanum enriched with foliage, fruit,a cartouche and the words "THEATRE ROYAL".

The interior remains intact apart from some applied materials to the stage. Two horseshoe galleries on cast-iron columns with superimposed orders. The pit, circle and gallery each with separate entrance, were designed to seat 1200. Bench seating and standing room in the gallery. Gallery fronts decorated with cartouches. Domed roof. The proscenium cover bears the Royal Arms supported by life-size figures representing music.

W. Emden designed the Garrick Theatre 10 years earlier.

M. Fairhurst, Theatre Royal Barnsley, Its Climb and Decline, 1970 (a thesis in Barnsley Central Library).

Listing NGR: SE3440906230