Andover Mecca Bingo – Junction Road

Andover had one of the more colourful transition stories in British bingo history. The building opened in 1926 as the Palace Cinema, designed by local architect Frederick Henshaw, and predates the Odeon connection entirely, being acquired by Odeon Theatres in 1935 and renamed accordingly. It was a modest, small-town picture house rather than a super cinema, seating just 867. In 1967 it became the Classic Cinema, and from around 1968 the building entered a genuinely unusual period of split use, with bingo running in the stalls while cinema continued upstairs in the balcony, at one point including an adults-only Tatler Cinema Club alongside more conventional programming. Bingo and cinema shared the building for roughly seven years before the final film screening in June 1975, after which the whole space was restored for full-time bingo, becoming Mecca in the mid-1970s.

It remained a compact club by Mecca standards, seating around 250, offering electronic bingo, gaming machines, a licensed bar and disabled access, all inside an interior Cinema Treasures describes as little altered despite decades as a bingo hall. The final session took place on Sunday 14 August 2022 as part of that year’s wave of Mecca closures. Unusually for these old buildings, its story didn’t end there. It has since been converted into a mosque and Muslim community centre, with planning documents confirming the exterior remains unchanged, giving the old Palace Cinema a genuine second life as a place of community gathering rather than standing empty.

Other Lost Halls In The Area

• Winchester Top Rank Bingo – Middle Brook Street
• Salisbury Buzz Bingo – Endless Street
• Alton Palace Bingo – Normandy Street