Grand Theatre Including Former Assembly Rooms

The Grand Theatre, incorporating former assembly rooms and rehearsal spaces, was built between 1877 and 1878 by George Corson and James Robertson Watson. It was later converted into a cinema by 1907, with shop front alterations around 1930, and two shops were restored in 1978. The building is constructed of brick with stone dressings and a slate roof.

The main front is divided into three elements: the theatre entrance to the left, a row of six shops in the centre, and the former assembly rooms (later a cinema) to the right. The design is High Victorian in style. The theatre entrance has three storeys and features four round arches, the central pair set within a larger outer arch. A balustraded course runs along the first floor, above which is an arcade of Romanesque windows. A central gable is topped with a rose window, flanked by turrets. The shop front incorporates a restored shop window on the left (No.44), alongside original doorways, with other shop windows displaying 1930s plate glass, some with sunburst motifs, and recessed doorways with Art Deco flooring. Above the shop fronts are two tiers of plain round-headed windows, grouped in pairs and threes, topped by four large windows similar in style to the theatre entrance. The entrance to the former assembly rooms is marked by a flat arch in a rendered facade incorporating a face and fan design, moulded outer arch, swags, and a central plaque. Three round-arched windows sit above the entrance, topped by a pyramidal roof.

The theatre interior is highly elaborate, featuring fine plasterwork painted in muted colours. The auditorium has three horseshoe balconies adorned with gilded scrollwork, curving down to a round proscenium arch set within a rectangular frame with rounded corners, flanked by clustered columns. The female figures flanking the boxes are restorations from post-1978 work. The ribbed and domed ceiling is dominated by a central chandelier and plaster pendentives. Original features include a supper room above the theatre entrance, with a kitchen behind the rose window in the gable; and access to large, fire-proof cellars for wine and storage beneath the entrance. The former assembly rooms concert hall, later a cinema and now rehearsal rooms, retains elaborate Classical-style plaster decoration including paired pilasters with Ionic capitals, a segmental-arched ceiling with ribs and panels decorated with reliefs of fruit and flowers, and round-arched niches flanking the proscenium arch. The foyer includes a plaster frieze depicting torches and wreaths. Original stairs, with turned newels, remain, alongside cinema stairs with square newels and a wrought-iron scrolled balustrade. The building opened on 15 April 1907 as the Assembly Rooms cinema, with 1,100 seats, and was renamed The Plaza on 25 August 1958.