Regal Cinema

Former cinema, now bingo hall. Built 1936-7 for Union Cinemas to the designs of Robert Cromie. Steel frame clad in red brick with Portland stone details and rustication; some herringbone brickwork in the base. The roofs are not visible from public areas.

The building features a very high auditorium with balcony, accessed through an equally tall and elaborate foyer and staircase hall. Dressing rooms and offices to the rear are of no special architectural interest.

The main frontage is a symmetrical, freestanding brick composition set above a storey-height base of banded rustication. The centre section steps forward and is flanked by higher pylons. The centrepiece comprises a Portland stone box of two storeys and four bays, with margin-light glazed windows set between attenuated columns. The door surround is now tiled, but retains its original paired double doors below. Oculi appear in the pylons and are repeated on the side elevations, where very tall staircase windows are set between narrow paired columns. Banded rustication continues across these elevations, terminating in exit doors in moulded Portland stone surrounds. The columns bear narrow stylised capitals typical of Robert Cromie's work, showing the influence of Egyptian revival and Art Deco styles. Beyond these, lining the auditorium, are eleven further engaged paired columns set in blind arcades. Below these are areas of herringbone brickwork formerly used for poster displays.

The foyer is double-height with staircases to either side, linked by a balcony at first-floor level now glazed in. The main foyer ceiling is trabeated with chandeliers; console brackets flank the windows, and plaster panels and engaged columns line the side walls, now set behind later inserted fire lobbies of no special interest. An anthemion frieze decorates the balcony area, with urns and florets on the steel balcony rail. Simpler chandeliers hang below.

The main auditorium is distinctively in Cromie's style. The proscenium survives but has had a false ceiling inserted into the anteproscenium. Cromie characteristically made a feature of unadorned prosceniums, as seen in his Gaumont Palace, Hammersmith, and in his later work. Decorated grilles to the side walls are flanked by narrow columns, their mouldings repeated on a small scale on the side walls within a ribbed band just below balcony level. The stall floor has been raised, with steps now leading down to exit doors beneath the main grilles, also set in ribbed surrounds. Banding decorates the balcony front. A coved ceiling set in complex curves, particularly to the underside of the balcony, incorporates ventilation ducts.

Robert Cromie was one of the first architects to specialise in cinema design. He came to prominence as a theatre architect, working for Bertie Crewe from 1910 to 1914 on the new auditorium at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in 1922. His success in cinema design began with the Davis in Croydon in 1928 (demolished) and continued with the Gaumont Palace, Hammersmith, originally also for the Davis family. Cromie later worked for Union Cinemas, whose bankruptcy—resulting from their cinemas being too elaborate and costly—means that few of his late cinemas survive. This building has been identified as one of the top two.