Top Rank Bingo Club

Former Gaumont Palace Cinema, now a Top Rank Bingo Club. Built in 1931-2 by W.T. Benslyn, the building is constructed with a steel frame, brick cladding, and Ham Hill stone columns, along with some travertine and Ancaster stone dressings around the entrance. The roof is not visible. The rectangular plan encompasses a large auditorium with a single balcony, a stage with a flytower and dressing rooms, and a single-storey foyer, originally a cafe, now used as offices.

The main elevation is divided into three sections, featuring original doors accessed by steps between Ham Hill stone columns. Above the doors are three square casements within a stone frame, surmounted by a sculpted panel by Newbury A. Trent, depicting “Love and Life entangled in the Film.” Banded decoration continues as a cornice band. The original canopy has a late 20th-century fascia. The side elevation has small casement lights set within bands of brickwork. The former stalls entrance to the rear retains original doors and a canopy, with stepped arch panels and banded brickwork to the flytower.

The interiors are accessed by steps of Ancaster stone and travertine. The vestibule features original double inner doors, a coved ceiling, and a small paybox in the west wall, positioned above a heating grille incorporating fountain motifs. The foyer has a coffered ceiling and extensive use of travertine as flat architraves surrounding doors, openings, and a frieze of relief panels with nymphs symbolising land and sea, designed by A. Hinton. Column bases mark staircases leading through vomitories to the balcony. A sympathetic additional staircase has been added. The broad proscenium has a fluted surround, and the ante proscenium is flanked by fountain motifs, repeated on a decreasing scale along the side walls, above a frieze of intertwined frozen fountains that continues along the balcony front. The ambulatory to the sides and rear of the stalls is formed by columns with lotus-leaf capitals, with a similar frieze. A shallow recess under the balcony has a fluted decorative ceiling. The principal ceiling has coved decoration incorporating a ventilator within a central recessed panel. The stalls are now floored flat to the original level of the stage. The flytower and safety curtain remain above a false ceiling on the stage, along with the dressing rooms to the rear.

The building is notable as an unusually rich and complete surviving cinema from the period known as the “heyday of the talkies,” and is consistently decorated with Moderne motifs and sculptural ornament both inside and out.