Mgm Cinema, 252-262 High Street, Kirkcaldy

The building at 252-262 High Street, Kirkcaldy, is a former cinema (previously the King’s Theatre) and a 4-storey with attic tenement, constructed in 1904 by J D Swanston and William Williamson. It occupies a corner site and was subsequently altered in 1909 by Swanston & Syme, and in 1924, 1936, and during later 20th-century renovations. The ground floor currently accommodates shops, with commercial space and a mezzanine appearance on the first floor.

The building is constructed of red sandstone with raised and tabbed margins, featuring a 2nd-floor lintel course and a mutuled eaves cornice. Architectural details include roll-moulded, keystoned doorcases and oculi, pedimented windowheads, channelled and plain pilaster strips, corbels, and stone mullions.

The north (High Street) elevation has eight bays. An outer-right bay features a roll-moulded and keystoned pend entrance with a decorative cast-iron gate. To the left are four modern shops, followed by a pend entrance, a shop with an inset door, and a modern cinema entrance. The penultimate bay to the left houses a modern shop. First-floor oculi are glazed and keystoned above the pend entrances. Full-width tripartite windows are positioned above the shops, and a blocked doorhead is visible in the cinema bay. The upper floors have blank outer bays; the cinema bay features a canted tripartite window topped with an open pediment and a blind oculus. Regular bipartite windows are present in the remaining bays, each with a pedimented dormer window above.

The corner tower, located to the northeast, has a ground-floor doorway with a panelled timber door and a keystoned glazed oculus above. The first two floors are canted, with a corbel supporting a bowed tripartite window at the second floor, which then transitions to a square layout at the third floor. A cavetto corniced window, breaking the eaves, is located below a finialled ogee roof.

The east elevation contains a variety of window openings, many of which are now blocked. A modern shop is present at ground level in the outer-right bay, with a four-part window above. The penultimate and outer-right bays of the third floor have pedimented windowheads projecting above the eaves.

The glazing pattern generally consists of 4-pane upper sashes over plate glass lower sashes. Timber sash and case windows with 6-pane upper sashes over plate glass lower sashes are used on the north elevation 2nd and 3rd floors, in bays 2, 3, 6 and 7. Dormers above bays 3, 6 and 7 have 12-pane casement windows. Etched plate glass glazing is used in the first-floor windows, and modern glazing is elsewhere. Grey slates cover the roof. Ashlar coped skewputs and stacks with decorative cans are present, alongside cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers.