Date of closure: 26th February 2023
Address (for reference only):
Mecca Bingo (Lost Halls)
4 Boswell Park
Ayr
KA7 1NW
Ayr’s Mecca occupied one of Scotland’s great super-cinemas, and it’s frankly underselling the building to call it just a bingo hall. It opened on 8 July 1931 as Ayr Playhouse, also known as Green’s Playhouse, designed by Scottish cinema architect John Fairweather and seating an enormous 3,104 to 3,116 patrons, making it the second-largest cinema in Scotland at the time. It was actually the third major entertainment building on the site, following an earlier roller-skating rink turned cinema in 1911 and a smaller 1923 Playhouse that burned down. The surviving building is Category B listed, and Historic Environment Scotland regards it as the earliest surviving example of Fairweather’s Green’s super-cinemas, with Corinthian columns, semi-circular boxes, a marble entrance staircase, stained-glass stairwell windows and original friezes and cornices all surviving remarkably well into its bingo years.
Bingo arrived in 1968, giving the building around 54 years as a Mecca club before it finally closed on Sunday 26 February 2023. By its later years the roughly 35,187 square foot building housed the vast former auditorium as the main gaming hall, with offices and ancillary space around it, and in 2021 the freehold sold at auction for £432,500 with Mecca’s lease running to 2026, giving the club an apparently secure future that ultimately didn’t hold. Former customers spoke of three generations of the same families attending, and the closure brought a genuinely emotional farewell to a building that had been bringing large crowds together under one spectacular roof for 92 years, first for films and stage shows, and for more than half a century since, for bingo.
Found this club to be the friendliest club I’ve been to in a long time. There’s definitely a ‘Nothing’s too much trouble’ environment taking place there. I came down from Glasgow for the weekend and I had a great time. I’ll be back!
Mecca at Ayr is great! All the staff are friendly and descent. Susan is fun too talk too, Carly is a star, Helen is so funny she’s called smiler. It’s the best hall I have played and I have played in lots.
The money’s good, but the great thing is when go in and see Susan standing at the reception, you always know there’s a laugh. When you’re down they all cheer you up and get tasters of all the food and they respect players that pass away. They help always and never had a bad word, and been there 6 years.
I never play anywhere else, the staff make it fun and not just bingo. I lost my daughter and the bingo helped me get over it, the laughs, the fun and the staff taking your mind off things. They should be respected for a lot.
I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for Carly, Susan and Helen. They were so brilliant they never knew my business. That’s what makes it all the more special, they deserve a lot, they’re a great bunch. I am only 32 and I am glad I have bingo for good and bad times.
I would just love to say me and my mum came to Ayr for the weekend, we came to your bingo hall 3 times and we felt so welcome: happy cheery staff, nothing was a bother to them. Daft Clarie was funny and Tommy the bingo caller was a good caller. Hope all goes well in Greennock next week. See you all next year you crazy bunch. Missing you all already, but eyes down and don’t miss a number!