Description

SK 5904 LEICESTER QUEEN STREET
(north side)

718/8/10084 The Odeon Theatre

II

Includes: The Odeon Theatre, RUTLAND STREET
Cinema. 1936~38, converted 1974. Designed by Robert Bullivant of Harry Weedon's Office for the Odeon Cinema group. Steel and reinforced concrete with brown brick and faience tiling and flat roofs. EXTERIOR: main entrance at south-west curved corner with 3 steps up to 5 sets of late C20 double doors with projecting modern illuminated sign. Flanked by curved white tile projections with black tile band above. Above centre, 4 white faience tile buttresses with curved tops divide the 5 tall windows each with 25 panes. Flanking curved brick tower to left has horizontal banding and continuous vertical banding across the whole facade. Above set back curved parapet with horizontal banding and ODEON in large red letters. West front to Rutland Street has black faience tile ground floor with 6 brick panels and long brick panel to left corner. Above white tiling with strip of 2 triple windows to right with brick surrounds. At curved left corner a further sign with ODEON in large red letters. Facade topped with horizontal brick banding. North, Southampton Street facade has banded brick ground floor with 5 sets of doors and 2 small windows, above blank brick walls with plain pilaster strips and banded top. South, Queen Street facade has similar brick decoration. INTERIOR: circular foyer survives with some original vertical strips. Original staircase survives with fitted seating in foyer to circle and inner foyer with curved ends and curved coving. Former circular bar re-fitted c1974. Former auditorium now divided at balcony level. Former stalls retain much of original plaster decoration on walls of present outer corridors. Former circle retains seating, layout and ceiling decoration. HISTORY: this cinema was opened on 28th July 1938 with a screening of 'A Slight Case of Murder'. The seating capacity was 2,182, with 1,307 in the stalls and 875 in the circle. The cinema was divided into 3 smaller cinemas in 1974.

Listing NGR: SK5920104536

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Leicester Athena at Wikipedia
• Leicester Athena official website
• Wikidata Q15242218

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)