The Astoria

The Astoria, 37-39, Guildhall Walk, Portsmouth, PO1 2RY

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1385023
Date first listed:: 05-Oct-2000
List Entry Name:: The Astoria
Statutory Address:: The Astoria, 37-39, Guildhall Walk, Portsmouth, PO1 2RY

User submitted image — Uploaded by Brian Mawdsley 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:: 1385023
Date first listed:: 05-Oct-2000
List Entry Name:: The Astoria
Statutory Address 1:: The Astoria, 37-39, Guildhall Walk, Portsmouth, PO1 2RY

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:: The Astoria, 37-39, Guildhall Walk, Portsmouth, PO1 2RY

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

District:: City of Portsmouth (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SZ6400399979

Details

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 24 May 2022 to update the name and address, to remove superfluous source details from text and to reformat the text to current standards

SZ6499NW 774-1/22/10015 05-OCT-00

GUILDHALL WALK No 37-39, The Astoria (Formerly listed as Palace/Uropa, GUILDHALL WALK

GV II

Nightclub, built as a cinema in 1920-21 for Portsmouth Cinemas Ltd, to the designs of A E Cogswell. Builder: Frank Privett. Brick with render, and elaborate roof of onion domes. Small double-height auditorium with balcony, entered through foyer, now adapted as night club.

EXTERIOR: elaborate symmetrical street facade in Indian Moghul style, culminating in an exotic roofline. A bulbous central `onion' dome, flanked by smaller flattened domes, surmounts the stepped-up portion of the facade, which rises above lower wings. This middle section has a large window with a stylised Islamic arched top and set within a shallow squared niche. The lower wings have vertical sections which break forward at the ends of the facade and are embellished with pilasters. These lower wings have vertical rectangular windows in recessed areas and tall narrow slit windows in the end sections between the pilasters. There is a cornice frieze along the entire facade, the middle portion of which is decorated with niches. Surmounting the vertical sections at the ends of the facade are octagonal colonnaded and domed pavilions. All the domes are topped by pinnacles. Below the vertical rectangular windows is plaster decoration in the form of half-moons and star motifs with rosettes in the centres. Leaded glazing to the three central windows.

The lower portion of the facade has a more Western character: the slit windows at the sides have decorative balconies with iron balustrades of baroque form and there is a segmental pediment over a lead canopy. The tympanum inside the pediment originally carried the name of the cinema. The main entrance is located beneath the lead canopy and has Islamic decoration in the corners of its arch. Flanking this are shallow niches with half-pilasters and quasi-Islamic decoration in the tops. There are Arts and Crafts style hood mouldings over the emergency exit doors at the extremities of the facade.

INTERIOR: the auditorium is unusual in that the screen was originally behind the entrance, and has not been changed round, as was commonly done. It is entered via a narrow foyer. The interior has been altered for use as a nightclub, although the shape of the ceiling survives and the raking underside of the balcony can still be seen. The stairs to the balcony on the left of the auditorium, perhaps designed for the orchestra, also survive together with a relieving arch on the half landing.

ANALYSIS: this is one of the most outstanding buildings by the significant local architect A E Cogswell. Cogswell served in the First World War in India, so that the Moghul style adopted here was based on sources seen at first hand. Opening the cinema on 21 February 1921 the Mayor, Councillor John Timpson, described it as 'one of the most opulent of local picture palaces'. Although unusual in its motifs, the arrangement of the facade with its strong central feature is typical of Cogswell's work. This is a fine cinema facade of the early 1920s, expressive of the purpose of the building, to amuse, and it stands within an established tradition of the use of exotic styles for entertainment buildings, c.f. the mid- nineteenth-century Alhambra Theatre in Leicester Square, demolished in 1936. While not unique, this treatment is unusual and few examples of the type have survived. The cinema forms a strong entertainment group with the grade II* listed Theatre Royal opposite.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 485484
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Atwell, D, Cathedral of the Movies: A History of British Cinemas and their Audiences, (1980), 52-3
Barker, Brown, Greer, , The Cinemas of Portsmouth, (1981), 101-12
Gray, R, Cinemas in Britain: One Hundred Years of Cinema Architecture, (1996), 140
Nash, A, AE Cogswell Architect within a Victorian City, (1975), 95-98

Legal

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