Riviera Cinema

The Riviera Cinema is an assembly room built in 1826 by Andrew Patey of Exeter. It was restored and altered in 1934 and is designed in a Neoclassical style. The building has a rectangular plan with a stair turret at the rear right. It stands three storeys tall and features a symmetrical seven-window range. Surrounding the building is a cornice and blocking course, with 20th-century additions to the roof. The ground floor projects and is supported by eight unfluted Greek Doric columns in antis. The upper floors showcase ornamental windows from 1934, which are enhanced by an Ionic grand order of four central columns that support a pediment flanked by pilasters. The windows on the returns are blind, while those on the right return are later 19th-century with moulded architraves, some of which are tripartite with cornices on consoles. The ground floor has 20th-century shops. Although the interior was not inspected, it is known to have been altered after its conversion into a cinema in the mid-20th century. The Riviera Cinema is part of an elegantly planned crescent layout facing the sea, flanked by Nos 6-10 and 1-5.