JEHOVAHS WITNESS HALL

JEHOVAHS WITNESS HALL, CASTLE HILL

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1385009
Date first listed:: 05-Oct-2000
List Entry Name:: JEHOVAHS WITNESS HALL
Statutory Address:: JEHOVAHS WITNESS HALL, CASTLE HILL

User submitted image — Uploaded by Patrick Eaton This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1385009
Date first listed:: 05-Oct-2000
List Entry Name:: JEHOVAHS WITNESS HALL
Statutory Address 1:: JEHOVAHS WITNESS HALL, CASTLE HILL

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: JEHOVAHS WITNESS HALL, CASTLE HILL

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Dudley (Metropolitan Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SO 94885 90546

Details

DUDLEY

SO9490NE CASTLE HILL 726/1/10029 Dudley 05-OCT-00 Jehovah's Witness Hall

GV II

Also Known As: Odeon Cinema, CASTLE HILL, Dudley

Former Odeon cinema. Opened 1937, architect Budge Reid of the Harry Weedon Partnership. Brick, with steel frame; foyer block clad in black and cream faience. Double-height auditorium with balcony, reached via foyer and staircases.

Symmetrical facade to Castle Hill in Moderne style. Five entrances to foyer in deep recesses. Wide curving canopy above entrances, over which are five ventilation apertures. Five deeply recessed vertical windows at first floor level surmounted by moulded canopy. Brick rear wall of auditorium behind foyer block, with rounded and channelled corners. Pitched roof hidden. Single-storey curving links either side also in faience. Return walls in plain stock brick.

Wind lobby - five sets of original glazed swing doors with acid-etched decoration. Pay box in centre facing outwards. Wide entrance foyer with stairs at either end leading to balcony. Three plaster saucer domes in ceiling with concentric mouldings.

Large double-height auditorium splayed out from proscenium. Shallow stage. Ceiling stepped down in arched lighting coves, with plain segmental ceiling over balcony. Continuous plaster mouldings on splay walls sweep to proscenium from last cove above balcony. Moderne style ventilating grilles on splay walls. Continuous moulding over proscenium and flanked by wings studded with roundels. Honeycomb design fibrous plaster grille in ceiling cove nearest balcony and again at high level in ground floor rear wall. Original standard `Odeon' style doors with streamlined mouldings over glazing panel in rear ground floor wall, right hand proscenium splay wall and rear balcony wall. Wide vomitory entrance at centre of balcony. An atypical feature is the greater number of rows (nine) in the front of the balcony compared to the rear (seven) - the reverse of the usual arrangement.

Included as an almost complete example of typical Odeon cinema of the 1930's, with no subdivision of the auditorium or alteration of its floor levels. The Odeons were style-leaders in cinema design of the time. The Odeon became a Jehovah's Witness Hall in 1976.

Literature:

Ned Williams, Cinemas of the Black Country, p.147-9, Urlaia Press, 1982 Rosemary Clegg (editor), Odeon, p.155, Mercia Cinema Society, 1985 Allen Eyles, Oscar and the Odeons, Focus on Film No.22 p.43 & 54, Autumn 1975 Dennis Sharp, The Picture Palace, p.135 & 144, Hugh Evelyn, 1969 Francis Lacloche, Architectures de Cinemas, p.172, Editions du Moniteur, 1981 Richard Gray, Cinemas in Britain, p.138, Lund Humphries, 1996

Listing NGR: SO9488590546

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 485469
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Clegg, R, Odeon, (1985)
Gray, R, Cinemas in Britain: One Hundred Years of Cinema Architecture, (1996), 138
Lacloche, F, Architectures de Cinemas, (1981), 172
Sharp, D, The Picture Palace, (1969), 135 144
Williams, N, Cinemas of the Black Country, (1982), 147-9
Eyles, A, 'Focus on Film' in Oscar And The Odeons, , Vol. 22, (1975), 43 54

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.