A very brief history -
This grand building began its life as the Regal Cinema in 1936 and ran as such until 1955 when it was bought and renamed "Essoldo". Essoldo stopped showing films in the 1960's and ran as a bingo hall until its closure in November of 2018, being taken over by Carlton Clubs somewhere along the way.
Our visit -
We pulled up to this place way too early, so decided to go to the nearest pub to try and pass some time.. This resulted in us getting mildly pissed, giving us the dutch courage we needed to make this a successful evening. We first got inside as a little recce to see if the place was alarmed and our access led us to the sound of a radio playing..
"Can you hear that?"
"Yeah."
"Ah, Fuck it."
Drunk-giggling at the idea of someone sitting behind their desk just watching us hanging.
Luckily, there were no sirens, and no person waiting for us on the ground floor either, so we pressed on and found a dark auditorium lit only by emergency lighting. After walking around for a while we decided we were safe, so we headed hack to the van to grab our camera gear and a few more beers for our excursion. What followed was a decent look around and some silly pissed-up antics.
Visited with @Exploring with Andy
A definitely not stolen exterior photo -
Auditorium, still mostly original (if you excuse the bingo paintjob) -
And the only other area that wasn't full of shit tat -
And that's your lot really! I thought I took a lot more photos, but I think most of our time was spent stood on the stage being drunk.
There really wasn't much else to see, but it's a decent bingo conversion overall!
Sadly, the projector room had been converted into a plant room a long time ago.
Cheers!
This grand building began its life as the Regal Cinema in 1936 and ran as such until 1955 when it was bought and renamed "Essoldo". Essoldo stopped showing films in the 1960's and ran as a bingo hall until its closure in November of 2018, being taken over by Carlton Clubs somewhere along the way.
Our visit -
We pulled up to this place way too early, so decided to go to the nearest pub to try and pass some time.. This resulted in us getting mildly pissed, giving us the dutch courage we needed to make this a successful evening. We first got inside as a little recce to see if the place was alarmed and our access led us to the sound of a radio playing..
"Can you hear that?"
"Yeah."
"Ah, Fuck it."
Drunk-giggling at the idea of someone sitting behind their desk just watching us hanging.
Luckily, there were no sirens, and no person waiting for us on the ground floor either, so we pressed on and found a dark auditorium lit only by emergency lighting. After walking around for a while we decided we were safe, so we headed hack to the van to grab our camera gear and a few more beers for our excursion. What followed was a decent look around and some silly pissed-up antics.
Visited with @Exploring with Andy
A definitely not stolen exterior photo -
Auditorium, still mostly original (if you excuse the bingo paintjob) -
And the only other area that wasn't full of shit tat -
And that's your lot really! I thought I took a lot more photos, but I think most of our time was spent stood on the stage being drunk.
There really wasn't much else to see, but it's a decent bingo conversion overall!
Sadly, the projector room had been converted into a plant room a long time ago.
Cheers!
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