Mecca Bingo Club

Former cinema, constructed in 1938 as the Savoy for Abraham Goide, designed by George Coles, FRIBA. The building is constructed of brown brick with faience dressings on a steel frame with a pitched roof. It comprises a double-height auditorium with a single rear balcony, and an impressive double-height foyer and staircase hall. The foyer block is positioned to the right, with the auditorium running to the left parallel to the street.

The exterior displays a Moderne composition with Classical embellishments. To the left of the main entrance doors are six further exit doors. A shallow canopy extends above the entrance and around a later extension to the right. Rising above the entrance is an arched double-height window with a broad faience surround and scrolling keystone. Engaged columns with composite capitals divide the window into three parts, above which sits an entablature and glazed lunette. The glazing incorporates complex Moderne metal bars. Flanking the window are two urns on low plinths. At the summit of the foyer block is a full entablature with Rinceau ornament in the frieze and a flat-pitched parapet. The long auditorium wall is largely blank except for two pedimented tabernacle windows at either end, connected by a faience string. Both windows have balustraded balconettes supported on twin consoles, with Moderne metal glazing bars. The left window is flanked by smaller plain window apertures. A plain faience frieze and parapet coping runs along the auditorium wall. The return walls are similarly detailed, with further windows featuring faience surrounds and a continuous arrangement extending along the full depth of the right return, which also displays a row of unadorned square windows on the second floor. Four flagstaffs are positioned: two on the higher block and two on the lower wing. A low-pitched roof is visible over the auditorium, with a chimney rising from the auditorium roof on the far left. The rear walls are functional and were not designed for visibility.

The interior features a spacious foyer with a streamlined Moderne ceiling formed by large lighting coves. At the far end, a central flight of stairs rises to a landing, dividing into left and right flights to subsidiary landings before quarter-turning into flights ascending to the balcony foyer. One scrolling Art Deco metal balustrade with a brass handrail runs down the middle of the first flight. Doors on the left of the foyer provide access to the large Moderne auditorium. The plain proscenium is enclosed by a lighting cove. The dado extends back from the proscenium, as does a stylized Anthemion frieze beneath the cornice. On the ante-proscenium splays are double-height niche features with recessed tops, partly filled with Art Deco fibrous plaster grills covering heating ducts and what was formerly the organ chamber. The niches stand on long balconettes beneath which run horizontal Art Deco grill-work. They are flanked by plain-topped pilasters with superimposed engaged half-columns surmounted by electric torcheres. The side walls are divided by plain-topped pilasters into three sections, also bearing electric torcheres. Between the pilasters, triple compositions comprise tall fields and verticals carrying wave mouldings and horizontal banding supporting blind Art Deco grills and plain roundels. The balcony features a single central vomitory, with several subsidiary sets of doors in the side and rear walls. The balcony front is relieved by three lines of indented mouldings. The timber barrier at the rear of the balcony features small Moderne grills. A Classical ceiling coving with stepped mouldings and a central lighting float in Moderne style, bound by further plaster mouldings, crowns the auditorium. The stage is shallow. A Moderne-fronted balcony overlooks the upper foyer stairwell. The upper foyer contains two vertical windows with Moderne glazing, a scalloped cornice, and streamlined ceiling coving with a central roundel.

The building represents a good example of a relatively unaltered large suburban neighbourhood super-cinema of the 1930s. Both externally and internally, the architectural elements are executed with the dexterity characteristic of one of the best and most versatile architects specializing in cinema design during the pre-World War II era of cinema construction. The cinema closed in 1961 to become a bingo club and is said to be the first permanent building in London exclusively devoted to the game.