Date of closure: Before 2014
Address (for reference only):
Independent (Lost Halls)
Palace Bingo
58 Normandy Street
Alton
GU34 1DE
The building originally opened as a 440 seater cinema called the Alton Picture Theatre in 1912, changing its name to the Palace Cinema in 1929. The cinema showed talkies from 1931 up until 1937 when it closed for a renovation that saw the strikingly simple Art Deco look applied to the facade.
It ran as the Palace Cinema right through to 1969 when it was converted to show both films and play as a bingo hall on a part-time basis. It continued showing films up until 1984 when it converted over to full time bingo. This didn’t last though, and bingo was moved up to the stalls in the club, and a screen was opened up again to show films in 1989.
The club is a rare example of cinema to bingo back to cinema, as the bingo section of the club was demolished in 2014 following laying unused for a time. The cinema remains open to this day and shows films 7 days a week.
