Palace Cinema, including Theatre Bistro, Pearl of Conwy and Jensens hairdressers

Palace Cinema, including Theatre Bistro, Pearl of Conwy and Jensens Hairdressers

This is an Art-Deco and modernist-influenced cinema with shops, built in the 1930s. It stands within the ancient walled town of Conwy and incorporates medieval architectural references including arrow loops, crow-stepping and shouldered lintels that reflect its historic setting.

The building comprises a 2½-storey entrance range with the main auditorium block behind. The entrance range is constructed in snecked sandstone with tooled quoins and dressings, topped by a steep slate roof behind a freestone parapet and high crow-stepped gables. A finial sits at the left gable and a stone stack at the right. The roof has a rainwater head on the right side dated 1935.

The main entrance and flanking shops are recessed beneath a projecting fascia, with pale ashlar walls. The deep recess to the main entrance has a terrazzo floor and two pairs of glazed double doors. The modernist-influenced shops form a reflected pair with plate-glass windows in thin bronze frames and doorways with small-pane glazing over lower fluted panels, all beneath plain repainted fascias. At the outer ends are further doorways in moulded surrounds, both with terrazzo floors to recessed double doors incorporating linenfold panelling and frosted-glass panels. The left-hand side also has an iron gate, and stone steps on the right side of the recess lead to the first floor.

Above the left-hand doorway is a castle in relief representing the Conwy borough seal. Above the right-hand window is a roundel framing a cast-iron bearded head.

The upper storey has five lights in the centre flanked by three lights on each side, all narrow with flattened angular heads. Below the parapet are corresponding short loops. A very narrow tall round-headed window appears on the left side. Hipped roof dormers are grouped as two, three and two in line with first-floor windows, mostly with two-light casements, though the left-hand dormer is boarded up.

The left gable end is rubble stone with crow-stepping. It features a very tall and narrow window under a shouldered lintel in a tooled stone surround, with an exuberant cast-iron grille depicting a tree with squirrels and geese. To its right is a reset tablet inscribed 'RE 1749', though the inscription is partly defaced by the addition of numbers either side of the date. A rubble-stone wall set back to the left links the entrance range to the large rectangular auditorium block behind, which has a stepped roof line concealed behind coped parapets.

The interior survives largely intact with an entrance lobby, offices, and the main auditorium featuring a proscenium arch and balcony. The proscenium opening has rounded columns to the sides with a curved band above, decorated with applied bas relief comprising a central clock flanked by film reels and figures including Mickey Mouse and Shirley Temple. Further bas relief above the rear arch shows cinematic genres from love stories to westerns, with additional decoration on the sloping ceiling above.

The building underwent conversion to a bingo hall, with seating removed from the auditorium and replaced with bingo tables, though the balcony retains its original seating.