Mecca Bingo Hall

This building is a bingo hall, originally built in 1908 as the Tottenham Palace Theatre by Oswald Cane Wylson of Wylson and Long. It represents group value as an exceptionally well-preserved example of a suburban variety theatre of the era. The theatre is constructed of red brick and Bath stone, standing three storeys high with seven windows across the facade. The design is symmetrical, featuring projecting end bays. The central entrance has panelled columns flanking five pairs of part-glazed doors topped with fanlights, all within architraves that have keystones with gabled tops. The projecting bays contain openings with eared architraves, margin glazing above, battered cornices, and gabled keystones. Long and short quoins are visible. The upper floor's central bays incorporate fluted Ionic pilasters supporting a deep entablature that extends around the projecting bays, using alternating brick and stone quoins which continue as bands on the returns. The first-floor French windows are architraved and pedimented, with a balustraded balcony that runs around the projecting bays, creating projecting bracketed balconies with panel and lozenge-shaped balustrades. Casement windows on the first floor feature segmental eared architraves in the central bays and architraves with cornices in the outer bays. A parapet tops the central bays, while the projecting bays have segmental pediments with oculi. The interior vestibule contains domes with plasterwork including shell motifs. The foyer features veined marble Ionic pilasters framing timber-panelled and architraved openings with enriched keystones, along with an elaborate plasterwork bracketed cornice and ceiling. The auditorium has a horseshoe-shaped cantilevered balcony and a gallery, both with elaborately decorated balustrades including cast iron three-branch lamps; the balcony features mask motifs. Boxes have three round-arched openings supported by Ionic veined marble columns beneath a deep entablature, topped with a central open segmental pediment with an enriched mask, behind which is a domed ceiling with radiating elements. Canted cheeks to the proscenium feature shell aedicules containing gilded semi-nude female figures holding a lyre and mace. The proscenium has an enriched fluted architrave with a central cartouche and an intricately decorated ceiling. While modern tables and chairs have replaced the original stalls seating, timber panelling to half-height on the walls remains, as do the original entrances and exits. The Tottenham Palace Theatre was one of approximately twenty built with complete cinematograph equipment, becoming a full-time cinema in 1926, before conversion to a bingo hall in 1960. It is one of the few surviving large suburban variety palaces of its kind.