Palace Cinema and Flanking Shops

This is a cinema, originally the Electric Palace, built in 1926 for the Palmer brewing family, with a pair of shops at the front. It occupies a land-locked site, and its roof is not visible. The cinema is entered through a passage between the shops, leading to a two-story front range that forms a forecourt beneath a glazed canopy. The cinema includes a stage, a small balcony, and a small staircase foyer.

The building’s front has six bays, with the central two bays slightly projecting and a slightly raised parapet above the passage entrance, all topped by a continuous cornice band. The first floor has casement windows. The shops have angled fronts to the street and the passage, retaining original leaded upper glazing, and corner columns on a deep plinth. The passage has a segmental arch, terrazzo flooring with the words “PASSAGE ENTRANCE” and a directional arrow, along with queueing rails and gates at the rear. The cinema’s front has four pairs of doors set between square columns under a dentil-moulded cornice, and an external paybox, an unusual feature in Britain. A glazed roof links the cinema to the shops, obscuring the rest of the facade.

Inside, the foyer, now with a central kiosk, has a terrazzo floor and a staircase featuring lincrusta balustrade and a timber handrail leading to the first-floor balcony. The foyer is notable for its collection of 1930s murals by George Byles, a pub sign painter for Palmers, representing a rare example of semi-vernacular decoration once common in semi-public buildings. Original hanging lights remain. The auditorium has a barrel-vaulted roof and a giant pilaster order on the side walls, with an urn moulding in the tympanum over the stage end. The balcony has two rear boxes and moulded swag decoration along the front. Projection facilities are unusually located in a box beneath the balcony. The cinema has full stage facilities, including dressing rooms, curtains, and a clock. The front areas of seating have seen little alteration.

The building is included on the list as a remarkably unaltered example of a 1920s cinema that originally had mural decoration in the auditorium, though that has been covered with paint. It was originally designed for dual use as a cinema and opera house, intended as a means for the Palmer brewing family to bring opera to Dorset.