page_title: Buildings and architecture of Brighton and Hove
section_title: Leisure and entertainment buildings
hierarchical_section_title: Buildings and architecture of Brighton and Hove / Types / Leisure and entertainment buildings
caption_attribution_description: 52–58 Middle Street, Brighton, City of Brighton and Hove, England: the former Brighton Hippodrome theatre, later a circus and a bingo hall. Listed at Grade II* by English Heritage (IoE Code 482157)
context_page_description: Brighton and Hove, a city on the English Channel coast in southeast England, has a large and diverse stock of buildings "unrivalled architecturally" among the country's seaside resorts. The urban area, designated a city in 2000, is made up of the formerly separate towns of Brighton and Hove, nearby villages such as Portslade, Patcham and Rottingdean, and 20th-century estates such as Moulsecoomb and Mile Oak. The conurbation was first united in 1997 as a unitary authority and has a population of about 253,000. About half of the 20,430-acre geographical area is classed as built up.
  Brighton's transformation from medieval fishing village into spa town and pleasure resort, patronised by royalty and fashionable high society, coincided with the development of Regency architecture and the careers of three architects whose work came to characterise the 4-mile seafront.
context_section_description: The Duke of York's Picture House is the oldest cinema still operating in England, and was one of the world's first when it opened in September 1910.  It is next to the fire station at Preston Circus and occupies the site of a 19th-century brewery.  The architects were Clayton & Black. There are some Classical and Palladian touches on the elaborately decorated façade, notably in the four-arch colonnade, but the overall style is Baroque.  The symmetrical front elevation has full-height rusticated pilasters on the two end bays, giving them the appearance of towers. The "monumental" Savoy Cinema (1930, by William Glen) just behind the seafront was later converted into a casino.  The 3,000-capacity building has a tall and prominent entrance in a free Art Deco style with some Classical touches. Its Sussex bricks were given a white glaze, and the building was nicknamed "the white whale".  "The most impressive of Brighton's interwar cinemas", though, was the Regent—designed in 1921 by Robert Atkinson and replaced in 1974 by a commercial development. It was Classical-style inside and out (the interior was the work of Walpole Champneys) and had a winter garden just below the roof. Its replacement was the Odeon Kingswest, converted in 1973 from the Russell Diplock Associates-designed Brighton Top Rank Centre of 1965.  The "intrusively aggressive" Brutalist structure has no windows and a low, "emphatically horizontal" appearance, but its jagged roofline of bronze-coated aluminium shapes give it prominence on its corner site.  "Hove's most opulent cinema" (and its only purpose-built one) was the Granada (1933) at Portland Road in the Aldrington area.  F.E. Bromige designed the Art Deco building, whose "striking angular tower" and corner site made it a landmark.  The Art Deco theme continued inside.  Closure came in 1974 and the building became a bingo hall. It was demolished in 2012 in favour of a mixed-use development. Another 1930s cinema that became a bingo hall in the 1970s and later closed is the Astoria Theatre on Gloucester Place in Brighton.  Demolition was authorised in 2012, although as it was a Grade II-listed building the final decision lay with national government. Demolition, again for a mixed-use development, began in April 2018.  Edward A. Stone designed the building in a French Art Deco style with a steel-framed interior clad in pale stone blocks decorated with faience.
  The Brighton Dome complex incorporates the Studio Theatre, Corn Exchange and a concert hall.  It has occupied its large corner site at the junction of Church Street and New Road in North Laine since William Porden built it for the Prince Regent in 1804–08.  Borough Surveyor Philip Lockwood converted the buildings into an entertainment complex in 1867–73, then the next Surveyor Francis May and theatre architect Robert Atkinson did more work in 1901–02 and 1934 respectively.  Atkinson's additions included the theatre, which faces New Road.  All of these schemes retained the Indian/Islamic architectural influences of Porden's work.  Atkinson gave the concert hall an Art Deco interior, while May's interior work was "of an eclectic Neo-Jacobean kind". Also on New Road is the Theatre Royal, another early-19th-century building remodelled several times subsequently.  Charles J. Phipps extended the theatre in 1866, and Clayton & Black gave the building its present appearance in 1894.  Their work includes a colonnade of cast iron columns of the Corinthian order, an exterior of "vivid red brick" and a series of dome-topped turrets on the roofline. The former Brighton Hippodrome in The Lanes was designed as an ice rink in 1897, but Frank Matcham converted it into a theatre and indoor circus in 1901–02.  Elaborate Rococo-style interior decoration and Royal Pavilion-style onion domes above the stage contrast with a low-key exterior with short towers at each end and a coloured glazed awning. Elsewhere, the Brighton Little Theatre occupies a Classical-style stuccoed former Baptist chapel of 1833, and the Emporium Theatre uses the former London Road Methodist Church-a
caption: The Brighton Hippodrome's present appearance dates from 1901, when Frank Matcham altered it.
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