St Martins Theatre

St Martins Theatre is a theatre built in 1916 by architect WGR Sprague, designed as a companion to the Ambassadors Theatre from 1913, but for different owners. The theatre was constructed by Lenn Thornton and Co. It features an ashlar facade with banded rustication on the ground floor.

The building has four storeys and five bays, with a ten-window left return. The ground floor includes round arch openings and a wide central entrance topped by a plain 20th-century canopy. Giant engaged Ionic columns, flanked by rusticated end pilasters, rise through the first, second, and third floors, supporting an entablature with triglyphs in the frieze and a parapet. The first-floor windows are adorned with Tuscan pilasters that support pediments, above shouldered architraves and keyblocks.

Inside, the theatre boasts a two-tier auditorium designed in a Classical style, featuring polished hardwood. The balcony fronts are fitted with turned balusters. The side walls of the auditorium are enhanced by large Doric engaged columns and pilasters on pedestals that support a bold entablature, which continues over the rectangular proscenium arch. The ceiling is a glazed dome. The stage machinery is a nearly complete example of Edwardian wooden stage design from 1916, with only minor alterations made to accommodate a dimmer room in the sub-stage area. This theatre represents one of the final developments in timber stage machinery in England and is an exceptional survival.

Historically, the "Architectural Review" of the time noted a shift in decorative style from lavish, showy palace designs to a more traditional English domestic interior, suggesting a more select audience.