The Tower Cinema
The Tower opened on 1st June 1914, designed by H. Percival Binks and owned by the Freeman family for three generations till 1978.
It seated 1200 people, very Art Nouveau in style on the outside & was just as grand inside with marbled floors, chandeliers & a grand marbled staircase with polished brass rails, on the first floor was a cafe with stained glass skylights and windows. Above the circle is a domed ceiling with murals and scrolls with gold leaf. You can just picture this can’t you?
On Sept 16th 1978 it closed as a cinema after 68 years, it opened again in 1981 after a refurbishment as a rock venue but was not very successful so changed to a nightclub. It changed hands in the late 80’s to Luminar Leisure, the owners of Hull’s Waterfront Club, then without warning closed in 2001. By March 2003 new owners again were Northern European Lesiure by then the two domes on the roof had disappeared, N E L had removed the domes as part of their refurb of the venue as the wooden frames of the old domes had rotted away, but after reopening in October 2004 as Vision nightclub after 1.5 m had been spent ,there were still no domes, eventually they were replaced with inferior painted copies “not even mosaicâ€, Hull City Council were not happy so in 2009 the Hull company of Toffollo & Son & Paul Bull a mosaic artist were commissioned to make new domes as near possible to the original ones, eventually in October 2010 the domes were replaced, with glass terrazzo mosaic on the domes with gold mosaic pattern’s.
The cinema is still empty and up for sale and in a very bad way with water seepage through the roof and years of damage as a nightclub, and is Grade II Listed.
Enjoy my pics even if some are shaky,forgot my tripod din't i.
The Stained Glass
The Foyer
The Entrance
Original plaster work hidden under black paint.
Part of the Nightclub
The Bar
More pics to follow, sorry about the flash pics but there was no lighting in there at all and with everything painted black it did'nt help. Enjoy
The Tower opened on 1st June 1914, designed by H. Percival Binks and owned by the Freeman family for three generations till 1978.
It seated 1200 people, very Art Nouveau in style on the outside & was just as grand inside with marbled floors, chandeliers & a grand marbled staircase with polished brass rails, on the first floor was a cafe with stained glass skylights and windows. Above the circle is a domed ceiling with murals and scrolls with gold leaf. You can just picture this can’t you?
On Sept 16th 1978 it closed as a cinema after 68 years, it opened again in 1981 after a refurbishment as a rock venue but was not very successful so changed to a nightclub. It changed hands in the late 80’s to Luminar Leisure, the owners of Hull’s Waterfront Club, then without warning closed in 2001. By March 2003 new owners again were Northern European Lesiure by then the two domes on the roof had disappeared, N E L had removed the domes as part of their refurb of the venue as the wooden frames of the old domes had rotted away, but after reopening in October 2004 as Vision nightclub after 1.5 m had been spent ,there were still no domes, eventually they were replaced with inferior painted copies “not even mosaicâ€, Hull City Council were not happy so in 2009 the Hull company of Toffollo & Son & Paul Bull a mosaic artist were commissioned to make new domes as near possible to the original ones, eventually in October 2010 the domes were replaced, with glass terrazzo mosaic on the domes with gold mosaic pattern’s.
The cinema is still empty and up for sale and in a very bad way with water seepage through the roof and years of damage as a nightclub, and is Grade II Listed.
Enjoy my pics even if some are shaky,forgot my tripod din't i.
The Stained Glass
The Foyer
The Entrance
Original plaster work hidden under black paint.
Part of the Nightclub
The Bar
More pics to follow, sorry about the flash pics but there was no lighting in there at all and with everything painted black it did'nt help. Enjoy