Radio Cinema, Bridgend, Kilbirnie

James Houston, 1939. 2-storey to S, single storey former cinema auditorium to N, 5-bay, rectangular-plan Art Deco former Radio City cinema (currently a community centre, 2008). Steel frame with cement-rendered brick infill. Base course, dividing band courses with decorative circlets at junctions; coped eaves course to front block.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: symmetrical; 5-bay; slightly advanced centrepiece with broadly chamfered recessed doorway centred at ground accessed by 3 semicircularplan terrazzo steps with Saturn motif, entrance screen to doorway comprising 3 sets of glaze timber doors with triangular glazing pattern, doorway flanked by (later) mosaic tiled walls, semicircular-plan steel-framed cantilevered timber canopy oversailing entrance, deep recess centred above (originally containing "radio" transmitter beacon) flanked by 2-storey bays each with pair of windows to outer return at 1st floor, modern signage spanning recess at centre. Full height bays to outer left and right advanced at ground floor with curved outer angles, each with flag-pole clasped by facetted brackets, horizontal band of window openings at ground floor, window on each corner and to each outer return; pair of small openings to right of right return, modern billboard above; irregular openings to left of left return, predominantly louvred below lintel.

E ELEVATION: predominantly blank; doorway near-centre of ground floor, 3 margined billboard panels evenly spaced between horizontal band courses above; irregularly-fenestrated return of principal elevation advanced to outer left (see above).

W ELEVATION: matching E elevation, but with single billboard panel to left of irregularly-fenestrated front block at outer right.

Windows boarded-up (2000). Profiled reinforced asbestos cladding to auditorium roof with substantial cast-iron square-profile downpipes and gutters.

INTERIOR: curved ends and 3 circular light fittings to recessed ceiling feature in entrance hall; 2-leaf timber entrance doors with glazed strips accessing auditorium; some fluted wall decoration surviving; some projection equipment surviving in projection room at upper level of S block.

BOUNDARY WALLS, GATES, GATEPIERS AND ARCHWAY: low curved stugged sandstone wall enclosing S front surmounted by saddleback cope and wrought-iron railings with geometric pattern, circular-plan gatepier to SE, coped with domed cap; wall stepped up to meet bridge parapet at W.