The Rex Cinema

WAREHAM TOWN

SY9287 WEST STREET 767/2/10002 (North side) 12-JUL-00 The Rex Cinema

GV II

Former Oddfellows' Hall. 1889, remodelled in 1921 as a cinema. Red brick with stone dressings, slate roof. Rectangular first-floor hall, entered via stairs set behind ancillary shop, now used as caf', and with commercial premises on the ground floor below cinema.

Elaborate gabled facade, with tiled gable, stone sign and plaque. Arched tripartite Gothic stone windows on first floor now blocked. The ground floor still more elaborate, with double-doored entrance to cinema, central paired timber sash window and door to commercial premises all set in stone surrounds decorated with floreat motifs. To the right, a lower, two-bay frontage of two storeys with attic dormer has timber sashes in moulded foliate surrounds, but is more domestic in character. Timber panelled door at right. The exterior is a prominent and dignified feature in the High Street.

The interior. Tiled entrance hall with original internal doors. Staircase with stone steps, cast-iron balustrade and timber handrail leads to first-floor hall. Landing with top light, which has coloured glass panels. Hall retains original 1889 timber truss roof with wrought-iron tie bars, visible behind screen, and with tie bars visible in rest of hall, into which a coved ceiling was inserted as part of the conversion to cinema use. Panels on walls, and simple unmoulded proscenium.

Included as a good surviving example of an Oddfellows' Hall, with good late C19 decoration. Its conversion to a cinema gives the building added interest.

Listing NGR: SY9223787351