Mecca Bingo

Mecca Bingo (formerly Gaumont State Cinema)

A former cinema built in 1936-37 for Gaumont Super Cinemas, designed by architect George Coles FRIBA. The building is listed Grade II* and was converted to a bingo club from the early 1980s onward, surviving largely unaltered through this adaptation.

EXTERIOR

The High Road façade is a monumental composition in the Moderne style, symmetrical and clad in cream-coloured faience. It is crowned by a soaring central tower rising in three stages, each separated by cornices and parapets and topped with a pyramidal roof and finial. The tower's verticality is emphasised by triple glazing panels in the two lower sections, divided by pilasters, with five small square windows on each attic face. The height is further enhanced by black faience fins between the tower and low flanking turrets with pyramidal roofs. The area at the foot of the tower was left blank, originally for film publicity. The tower's street front corners are supported by buttresses. Multiple sets of glazed entrance doors occupy the base. The Willesden Lane frontage is also faience-clad with vertical windows above doors that originally served both as a separate cinema restaurant entrance and as emergency exits. The auditorium includes various emergency exits and small windows serving foyers, stairs, offices and lavatories.

INTERIOR

The route from the main entrance to the auditorium is subtly planned, with a rotunda positioned midway along the axis. Access begins through a lobby panelled with green vitrolite, leading to a grand foyer. This foyer is tripartite, three bays long, with a deeply coved and coffered ceiling in the central section. Paired columns with gilded Corinthian capitals separate the central section from side aisles. The side walls contain tall arched apertures filled with blush-tinted glass framed by black and white marble, with glazing divided into small panels by bevels. The end wall is treated as three bays with arches divided by similar columns backed by pilasters; the tympana of the outer arches are filled with honeycomb frieze lunettes. Each aisle bay contains a chandelier, with a larger chandelier in the nave. Beyond the foyer is an elliptical rotunda stair hall with twin flights ascending to a landing, giving access to the balcony foyer. A wide aperture directly underneath the landing leads to the stalls foyer. The staircase features half-landings and a balustrade of black and white variegated marble with column-on-vase balusters. Squat Art Deco lamps crown the terminating newels. The walls are panelled with dark-stained timber dado in the lower half, with a series of tall draped window apertures and pier glasses above. Horizontal panels containing Rinceau ornament are positioned over foyer archways and above doors to the balcony. A central chandelier hangs in the stair hall.

The stalls foyer, on the right of which was a large waiting hall beneath a first-floor café, opens directly onto the vast auditorium. The left side leads to the huge auditorium, dominated by a towering coved proscenium. A series of tall niches on the side walls cut into the ceiling coving. The ante-proscenium niches contain Corinthian columns supporting an entablature and Serliana; between the columns are plaster grills, behind which lie chambers for the Wurlitzer organ. Drapery hangs above the grills, with lanterns suspended from the niche arches. An ornamented and coved cornice runs around the auditorium. The ceiling is decorated with a circular feature of scrolling arabesque panels, centred on a saucer dome with an aperture for a lime gallery. Fully glazed light fittings are suspended from the centre of the saucer dome and around its periphery. Over the rear part of the balcony is a long lighting cove with semi-circular ends. Dark-stained timber panelled dado lines the auditorium walls with Rinceau ornament frieze below the rail.

The large balcony features vomitories and embellished side entrances, with a curved balcony front containing apertures for stage lights. The large balcony foyer is panelled in dark-stained timber; from this foyer formerly opened a large restaurant, later converted into a secondary cinema now closed. The stage is fifty feet deep with a fly-tower and substantial dressing room block beyond. The orchestra pit platform, which originally could rise to stage level, may remain in situ beneath the raised bingo floor. The Wurlitzer organ console stands on a low plinth to the left of the proscenium; it was originally located on a revolving elevator to the right.

SIGNIFICANCE

The Gaumont State, Kilburn was one of the largest and most impressive movie palaces ever constructed in Britain, with a maximum audience capacity of 4,004 seats—the greatest capacity of any English cinema of its era. George Coles brilliantly orchestrated both the decoration and spatial planning throughout the building, particularly evident in the carefully considered route from main entrance to auditorium via the rotunda. The building's conversion to bingo use has been achieved with remarkably little alteration to its historic fabric.