Cannon Cinema

Cannon Cinema is a cinema built in 1920 by AJ Taylor, located on Westgate Street. It features a classical façade on a compact site, standing three storeys tall with five bays. The windows are all sash type, with a central square pane surrounded by narrow margin panes, set in deep reveals and raised plaster surrounds. The second-floor windows have moulded sills over aprons with flat disc drops. The ground floor has five large square openings, though the ends are filled in, separated by channelled pilasters and topped with a cornice that rises to a broken semicircle at the center bay. Here, the first-floor window extends down to a shaped stone balcony with a bronze semi-cylindrical balustrade. The first floor is elevated by a deep podium band, inflected below channelled pilasters that rise through two storeys to a square cornice beneath a solid blocking course, which features dies and an open panel with diagonal bars above the windows. The heads of the pilasters at the ground and second floors have stepped drops, and above the center bay is a raised attic with a carved coat of arms of Bath City, flanked by drops and small scroll supporters. There is a secondary entrance to the cinema on Saw Close, adjacent to The Loft Club, which is a single-storey unit with a splayed corner, channelled pilasters under a panel, and a balustrade similar to the front. Inside, the auditorium has six bays with rich neo-classical plaster decoration that conceals a concrete and steel internal structure. Large console brackets disguise the supports for the steel roof trusses, and there is a concrete framed balcony. Originally called the "Beau Nash Picture House," this cinema was designed in a deliberately deferential style and was praised in 'The Builder' on December 14, 1924, as an example of good cinema design, representing the second generation of cinema buildings.