REGAL CINEMA

REGAL CINEMA, COWLEY ROAD

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1393171
Date first listed:: 03-Aug-2004
List Entry Name:: REGAL CINEMA
Statutory Address:: REGAL CINEMA, COWLEY ROAD

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1393171
Date first listed:: 03-Aug-2004
List Entry Name:: REGAL CINEMA
Statutory Address 1:: REGAL CINEMA, COWLEY ROAD

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:: REGAL CINEMA, COWLEY ROAD

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

County:: Oxfordshire
District:: Oxford (District Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SP 53281 05364

Reasons for Designation

DCMS agree yes list

Details

612/0/10104 COWLEY ROAD 03-AUG-04 Regal Cinema

II Former cinema, now bingo hall. 1936-7 for Union Cinemas to the designs of Robert Cromie. Steel frame, clad in red brick with Portland stone details and rustication; some herringbone brickwork in base. Roofs not seen. Very high auditorium with balcony, reached through similarly tall, elaborate foyer and staircase hall. Dressing rooms and offices to rear not of special interest.

Main frontage a symmetrical, freestanding brick composition over storey-height base of banded rustication, with centre stepped forward and flanked by higher pylons. The centrepiece is a Portland stone box of two storeys and four bays, with margin-light glazed windows set between attenuated columns. Door surround now tiled, but with paired double doors below. Occulus in pylons, repeated on side elevations, where there are very tall staircase windows set between narrow paired columns. Banded rustication continues, terminating in exit doors in moulded Portland stone surrounds. The columns have narrow stylised capitals typical of Robert Cromie's work and indicative of the influence of Egyptian revival and Art Deco styles. Beyond, lining the auditorium, are eleven further engaged, paired columns set in blind arcades. Below, areas of herringbone brickwork formerly used for poster displays.

Double-height foyer with staircases to either side, linked by balcony at first-floor level now glazed in. Main foyer ceiling is trabeated with chandeliers; console brackets between the windows, plaster panels and engaged columns to side walls now set behind inserted later fire lobbies not of special interest; anthemion frieze to the balcony area, and urns and floreats to the steel balcony rail. Simpler chandeliers.

Main auditorium is also distinctively in Cromie¿s style. The proscenium survives, but has had a false ceiling inserted into the anteproscenium. Cromie made a feature of unadorned prosceniums at his Gaumont Palace, Hammersmith, and in his later work. Decorated grilles to side walls flanked by narrow columns, their mouldings repeated on a small scale on side walls within a ribbed band just below balcony level. The stall floor has been raised, and steps now lead down to the exit doors beneath the main grilles, and these are also set in ribbed surrounds. Banding to balcony front. Coved ceiling set in complex curves, particularly to the underside of the balcony and incorporating ventilation ducts.

Robert Cromie was one of the first architects to specialise in cinema design. He had come to prominence as a theatre architect, working for Bertie Crewe from 1910 to 1914 on the new auditorium at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in 1922. His success in cinema design began with the Davis, Croydon, in 1928 (demolished) and was followed by the Gaumont Palace, Hammersmith, originally also for the Davis family. Cromie later worked for Union Cinemas, whose bankruptcy - the result of their cinemas being too elaborate and costly - means that few of his late cinemas survive. This has been identified as one of the top two.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 491889
Legacy System:: LBS

Legal

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