Mecca Bingo Club

MECCA BINGO CLUB, WINDMILL LANE, SMETHWICK

A former cinema constructed in 1929-30 for Provincial Cinematograph Theatres Ltd. to the designs of architect William T Benslyn. The building is now used as a bingo club. It is built of brown facing brick with stone dressings and stock brick to the rear, on a steel frame, with a sheet metal roof.

EXTERIOR

The frontage is exceptionally wide at 120 feet and presents a symmetrical three-storey elevation which breaks forward into a wide bay following the street line. The ends of the facade terminate in lower wings and short towers. At the centre, an attic storey carries a broad panel which once displayed the cinema's name. A border of chevron-laid bricks runs along the parapet of the central curving section, extending upward along the top of the attic storey.

The main entrances are approached up three steps through two wide apertures at the centre, flanked on each side by four narrow vertical windows and a set of three exit doors. The central exit door is surmounted by a ziggurat of recently-painted vertically-laid brickwork.

The curving central portion contains five symmetrically positioned vertical windows at first-floor level, each decorated with elaborate Baroque surrounds said to be of Portland stone (though now painted). These surrounds feature swan-necked pediments topped with peacocks displaying their tails. The end two windows stand on low plinths with flanking volutes framing a reeded panel, and retain original small-pane glazing bars.

At second-floor level are small square windows set within indented brickwork surrounds. The return walls are of similar brick with scattered windows lighting inner foyers and lavatories; the rear portions are treated as roof mansards. The rear facade features a gable end for the auditorium roof, a low stage fly tower, and a heating plant chimney.

INTERIOR

A wide but shallow lobby with flanking stairs ascending to an upper foyer features a plastered ceiling imitating vaulting. The auditorium is extremely wide and double-height, executed in Art Deco style. The side walls are lined by twelve tall, narrow pointed-topped triple-inset niches diminishing in size with the rise of the balcony, each having a fan-shaped motif at its base.

The proscenium features splayed ante-proscenium, its surface ribbed with a central feature (simplified in recent years) having canted sides. The outer edge of the ante-proscenium was designed as a lighting cove, now disused. A coffered ceiling extends over the ante-proscenium. The main ceiling is panelled with a fibrous plaster lighting feature in the centre designed as a series of circular formations.

The shallow balcony has a broad central vomitory with panelled timber sides and two sets of double doors with border mouldings and lozenge-shaped glazing apertures. Five small windows with blind glazing are positioned on the rear wall. Two columns support the former projection room above the rear balcony, whose ceiling features fibrous plaster honeycomb ventilation grilles.

HISTORY

The cinema opened as the Rink Cinema, replacing an earlier cinema of 1912 on the same site which had been converted from an ice rink. It closed as the Gaumont in 1964 and has since operated as a bingo club. The building is a notable example of a large super-cinema from the earliest years of sound film and retains many original features.