Weston-Super-Mare Odeon Cinema

Weston-Super-Mare Odeon Cinema

This is a cinema with an integrated parade of shops (vacant as of 2017), designed in 1935 by T Cecil Howitt and constructed by C Bryant & Son Ltd for the Odeon cinema chain. The building was converted to four screens during the late 20th century.

The structure uses steel-framed construction with reinforced concrete and brick. The street elevations are faced with cream faience with detailing in black opaque glass and green tile; other ground floor areas are now painted black as of 2017. Slate hangs on the sloping sections of the roof, with the remainder being flat and probably asphalt-covered.

The building occupies a prominent corner site at the junction of Walliscote Road and Alexandra Parade. It comprises narrow, roadside ranges linked by a curved entrance canopy, with an auditorium block to the rear.

Exterior

The building is designed in a streamlined Modern style and rises to three storeys with a basement serving the roadside ranges. The street facades are faced in paired buff and cream tiles set in a basket-weave pattern, with horizontal bands incorporating green tiles to the parapets and window sides. The steel-framed casement windows have horizontal bars. The Alexandra Parade elevation features a wide central window flanked by three-light casements to the first and ground floors; the lower right window appears to have been replaced. Walliscote Road has three ground-floor windows with narrower windows either side and five to the first floor, all of three lights, plus a 21-light window in a recessed, chamfered surround to the corner block adjoining the tower.

The ground floor elevations are faced with black Vitrolite except for the principal corner entrance which is faience-clad. A series of plate-glass shop fronts (boarded over in 2017) line the ground floor—one to the Alexandra Parade elevation and three to Walliscote Road. Some shop fronts have been replaced in the early 21st century. There are also paired and single doors, and the north-west corner entrance is flanked by five pairs of doors with a generous curved, aluminium-clad fascia above.

The square tower rises above the rest of the building and is topped by a flat slab with rounded corners, supported by twelve short columns. The rear of the building is relatively inaccessible and has rendered brick walling.

Interior

The front of house, encompassing the foyer and circulation spaces, is accessed from a vestibule leading to the foyer. In the current 2017 configuration, the stalls level is subdivided into three screens (Screens 2, 3 and 4). Two small studio auditoria (Screens 2 and 3) have been inserted under the original balcony with minimal damage to the decorative scheme; a third (Screen 4) is formed from the main stalls area. The angled side walls are stepped with timber panelling to the lower part. Paired timber doors on either side of the screen are recessed within deep architraves and timber surrounds. Each doorway originally had an octagonal clock with 'THE ODEON' lettering instead of numbers to tell the time; one remains. A Compton theatre organ is situated beneath the stage (Screen 4) with an illuminated console and a mechanism for raising and lowering. Steel columns have been added at the sides of the former stalls level to support an inserted floor for Screen 1. Lighting within the auditorium is concealed in troughs running across the ceiling, and the proscenium opening is set within three moulded recesses which were originally back-lit.

The public areas retain a good proportion of original features and fittings, including doors with vision panels with applied horizontal grilles, back-lit fluted troughs, cornices, and banded, patterned plasterwork to the walls. The upper foyer is lit by a large window of horizontal panes of yellow and frosted glass, vertical strips of glazing in a chevron design, and decorative roundels of coloured glass. The pendant light fittings in both foyers and the vestibule are probably late 20th century, but their Art Deco design is in keeping with the original fittings.