Torbay Cinema

Torbay Cinema

Cinema, licensed and officially opened in 1912, though it had opened previously. Probably designed by Hyams and Hodgen of Paignton, with Percy Drewe of Paignton as contractor. The building is in Free Baroque style with Art Nouveau decorative details.

The cinema is constructed of Flemish bond North Staffordshire brick with iron reinforcement and freestone dressings, with a slate roof concealed behind a parapet. It has a deep rectangular plan with an internal balcony, facing onto Torbay Road.

The exterior is a 3-storey 3-bay front. The centre bay is canted inwards with a pedimented gable projecting on very deep brackets. The bay is flanked by wide pilaster strips with Ionic capitals positioned some distance below eaves level. A first-floor bow window serves the foyer. Very deep moulded stone eaves cornices on modillion brackets with parapets above the outer bays. A platband above the second-floor windows of the outer bays links to the central transom of the bowed foyer window.

The entrance features a spectacular Art Nouveau doorway to the lower foyer. It has a round-headed varnished timber architrave with triple egg moulding and a transom with a 4-light fanlight above composed of bevelled glass panes. The 2-leaf doors are glazed with bevelled panes, with the outer bottom corners of each leaf infilled with varnished timber spandrels creating an overall oval shape. Fine sinuous timber door handles are fixed to a copper plate. The doorway has steps up, divided by a probably original brass and timber hand-rail. An upper step has a mosaic. A deep canopy across the front and over the doorway, supported on two slender reeded cast-iron columns, was added and is not part of the original design.

The first-floor stone-mullioned and transomed 5-light foyer window above has 3 transoms and is glazed with Art Nouveau stained glass. The outer bays have 3-light stone-mullioned windows; the first-floor windows are transomed. Similar windows appear in one bay of the returns.

The ground-floor foyer has been somewhat altered, but the original stairs to the upper foyer remain intact, with plain closely-spaced varnished splat balusters featuring Art Nouveau motifs. Stained glass decorates the upper foyer window.

The auditorium is remarkably well-preserved. The proscenium arch and orchestra pit for a 21-piece orchestra have been altered, but the rest of the interior is original. The auditorium has a 6-bay barrel ceiling with ribs supported on corbels decorated with relief heads of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Junior (the latter in the headgear of Moses), said to have been added to the original design. The ceiling is decorated with mouldings of fruit and foliage. Original Art Deco-style wall lights were made at a local smith's shop. The pastel colours of the wall and ceiling decoration are said to be unchanged since the cinema opened. Grilles on the long walls are from an original and unusually early air-conditioning system which filtered air through a plenum plant; the system except for the coal-fired boiler is said to be intact. The curved balcony frontal, recessed in the centre, retains original decoration. Private boxes at the rear of the balcony remain in use. Tip-up seats, reduced in number and rearranged for smaller audiences, are said to be original though re-upholstered. The roof is said to have iron A-frame trusses.

A hotel formerly occupied the site and was demolished to make way for the cinema. The precise opening date is unclear despite a remarkable archive of documentation held by the present owners. A licence request is said to have been made to the Local Authority as early as 1907. The Paignton Picture House Company, whose directors included Farrance Gillie, ran the cinema (previously known as the Paignton Electric Picture Palace) and a film library renting films to other organisations. It was incorporated on 15 April 1913. Agatha Christie was a regular user when living in Dartmouth, and the cinema is said to be the model for the 'Gaiety' cinema in her fiction. Paris Singer, who remodelled Oldway Mansion, is said to have visited with Isadora Duncan; documentation shows Singer sold the cinema company a grand piano. According to Atwell's book, eight cinemas purpose-built before 1912 remain in use, with seven others converted to other uses. The earliest is the Electric on Portabello Road, built in 1907.

An extremely well-preserved example of an early purpose-built cinema with an important archive of documentation.