Description

CAMDEN

TQ2584SW KILBURN HIGH ROAD
798-1/58/990 (East side)
05/02/91 The National Club

II

Formerly known as: The Grange Cinema KILBURN HIGH ROAD.
Former cinema, now club premises. 1914. By Edward A Stone.
Stucco, channelled to ground floor. Red and plum coloured
brick returns and rear. Slate mansard roof with terracotta
cresting; green copper dome surmounted by lantern with cupola
above entrance bays.
PLAN: rectangular plan on island site.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. 8 bays to main road plus 3 bay canted
corner with main entrance to right. Various doorways to ground
floor. Entablature with projecting cornice at 1st floor level.
1st floor entrance bays with round-arched windows having
margin glazing with stained glass and keystones flanked by
channelled pilasters supporting a projecting cornice and
parapet with recessed panels. Symmetrical 1st floor facade to
main road with five 5-light windows with patterned glazing
bars and stained glass flanked by channelled pilasters
supporting a parapet. Centre bay slightly projecting with
stepped pediment having an enriched plaque inscribed "The
Grange". Each end bay with shallow round-arched niche
containing a blind rectangular panel and panel inscribed "The
Grange Cinema"; keystone and stepped pediment with festoons.
Right hand return of plum coloured brick with red brick quoins
and 6 pilasters rising through 1st and 2nd floors to support a
red brick entablature at 3rd floor level; 3rd floor central
attic of 4 pilasters with pediment flanked by parapet. Rear
and left hand return in similar style but plainer.
INTERIOR: dramatic, double-height, top-lit foyer with Adam
style enrichment; Ionic columns support, on large console
brackets, an oval balustrade to the 1st floor lit by stained
glass windows and mirrors flanked by enriched pilasters
carrying ribs to central oval blind lantern. 1st floor, gained
by wide stair, with ornate panelling and plasterwork and some
good 1930s light fittings to circulation areas. Massive
auditorium with U-shaped balcony on enriched pillars providing
enriched plaster arcade to ground floor. Coved, enriched,
panelled plasterwork ceiling with intricate detailing on beams
and circular air vents. To either side, balconies arcaded.
Proscenium arch flanked by large enriched pilasters; widened
by MK Matthews, 1927. Seating now removed and side balconies
partly masked by bar partitioning.

HISTORICAL NOTE: designed to seat 2,310, The Grange was the
largest cinema in Europe when constructed and one of very few
surviving examples nationally that display cinema design at
its point of departure from theatre planning.

Listing NGR: TQ2503984172

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27086655

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

• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)