The Picture House, 26 Hall Street, Campbeltown

The Picture House, built in 1913 in Campbeltown, is a rare and important purpose-built cinema displaying unusual Glasgow School Art Nouveau treatment. The building’s most distinctive feature is its oval plan form, topped by a projection room belvedere. A gabled annexe was added in the 1930s.

The cinema is constructed primarily of brick with a roughcast white harl finish, punctuated by red fish-scale tiles.

The northeast elevation, fronting Hall Street, features a central elliptical entrance tower with a glazed screen and etched glass double doors at ground floor level. A parapeted balcony sits above, originally featuring four elliptical balusters, now enclosed by a fixed glazed screen wall. Horizontal brick bands and green ceramic tile spacers are visible on the rear and sides of the balcony. Above, a wide-brimmed elliptical roof rises to the oval projection room belvedere, which has horizontal glazed openings and a tiled mansard. Pilastered outer bays are accented with square ceramic tiles at the top of vertical recesses and pair of elliptical windows below the eaves. The rear and side elevations are plain roughcast. The attached annexe has a gable end facing Hall Street, with a full-width glazed entrance at ground floor level and concrete steps. A timber and lead canopy shelters the entrance, and an elliptical window is set within the gablehead.

The original windows are fixed 8-pane timber windows within elliptical openings. The auditorium roof is covered with red fish-scale tiles, while the main elliptical roof has a lead gutter at the eaves; cast-iron gutters and downpipes are present elsewhere. The annexe has a grey slate roof with timber bargeboards.

Inside, the auditorium has ashlar-effect tiling on the walls, rendered pilaster strips, a raked balcony and floor, and a curved ceiling. Seating installed in the late 1950s and early 1960s was replaced in 1988/89. Flanking the screen are decorative elements: to the right, a half-timbered “wee house” with a pantile roof and castellated tower supported by corbels; to the left, a Spanish Classical style mission house. A fringed pelmet extends over the screen. Numerous spotlights illuminate the ceiling. The elliptical projection room is accessed via a vertical ladder through a hatch in the floor. Surviving features from 1935 contribute to an "atmospheric" interior style.