Description

623/0/10064 SEASIDE
28-JUL-03 186
Former Elysium or Gaiety Cinema

II

Cinema, later adapted toBingo hall. Dated 1914 on gable. Brick, with some iron
columns, hipped tiled roof to front. Long narrow auditorium behind narrow foyer,
with small rear gallery.
EXTERIOR: Queen Anne style front stuccoed with centrepiece set forward under gable, flanked by paired pilasters, and with dentilled cornice and gable surround. Central
paired windows under gable, single windows in flanks, all set within decorated
architrave surrounds. These are wooden multipaned sashes. Ground floor has central
paired doors and one side door to left, probably of late 1960s or early 1970s; shop
fronts in between boarded over at time of survey. Blocked window to left hand side
visible internally. Canopy has chrome edgine and may retain an earlier canopy
underneath.
INTERIOR: Narrow foyer with coved cornice to front and egg and dart moulded cornice
and three plaster panels with corner paterae behind. Staircase retains original
corner column. Raked auditorium has arcade to either side. Between its shallow
openings are set pilasters, terminating in swags and shell capitals. Barrel-vaulted
ceiling, with moulded ribs and circular ventilation holes. Proscenium arch is large
plastered Caerarvon arch and brick rear wall, to which the screen was probably
directly fixed before sound, is visible. Staircase leads to first floor offices and
toilets at the front, a narrow corridor with egg and dart cornice and the Gallery.
Gallery retains a circular egg and dart moulding,probably for a light fitting,
moulded cornice with two side doorcases with chamfered pilasters and the balustrading
is very thick suggesting the possibility of earlier balustrading surviving
behind.There is a separate staircase from the Gallery to the south.
HISTORY: The cinema was built as the Eastbourne Picture Theatre, and became the
Elysium Cinema in 1921 and the Gaiety in 1936. Included as an unusually complete
example of a pre-1914 cinema, with considerable original plaster decoration.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Princess-Empire official website
• Wikidata Q26669929

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

• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)