The National Club

CAMDEN

TQ2584SW KILBURN HIGH ROAD 798-1/58/990 (East side) 05/02/91 The National Club

II

Formerly known as: The Grange Cinema KILBURN HIGH ROAD. Former cinema, now club premises. 1914. By Edward A Stone. Stucco, channelled to ground floor. Red and plum coloured brick returns and rear. Slate mansard roof with terracotta cresting; green copper dome surmounted by lantern with cupola above entrance bays. PLAN: rectangular plan on island site. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. 8 bays to main road plus 3 bay canted corner with main entrance to right. Various doorways to ground floor. Entablature with projecting cornice at 1st floor level. 1st floor entrance bays with round-arched windows having margin glazing with stained glass and keystones flanked by channelled pilasters supporting a projecting cornice and parapet with recessed panels. Symmetrical 1st floor facade to main road with five 5-light windows with patterned glazing bars and stained glass flanked by channelled pilasters supporting a parapet. Centre bay slightly projecting with stepped pediment having an enriched plaque inscribed "The Grange". Each end bay with shallow round-arched niche containing a blind rectangular panel and panel inscribed "The Grange Cinema"; keystone and stepped pediment with festoons. Right hand return of plum coloured brick with red brick quoins and 6 pilasters rising through 1st and 2nd floors to support a red brick entablature at 3rd floor level; 3rd floor central attic of 4 pilasters with pediment flanked by parapet. Rear and left hand return in similar style but plainer. INTERIOR: dramatic, double-height, top-lit foyer with Adam style enrichment; Ionic columns support, on large console brackets, an oval balustrade to the 1st floor lit by stained glass windows and mirrors flanked by enriched pilasters carrying ribs to central oval blind lantern. 1st floor, gained by wide stair, with ornate panelling and plasterwork and some good 1930s light fittings to circulation areas. Massive auditorium with U-shaped balcony on enriched pillars providing enriched plaster arcade to ground floor. Coved, enriched, panelled plasterwork ceiling with intricate detailing on beams and circular air vents. To either side, balconies arcaded. Proscenium arch flanked by large enriched pilasters; widened by MK Matthews, 1927. Seating now removed and side balconies partly masked by bar partitioning.

HISTORICAL NOTE: designed to seat 2,310, The Grange was the largest cinema in Europe when constructed and one of very few surviving examples nationally that display cinema design at its point of departure from theatre planning.

Listing NGR: TQ2503984172