Date of closure: 1995
Address (for reference only):
Midland Road
Bedford
MK42 0NX
At the moment we do not have details of the events that led up tothe closure of the Mecca Bingo Bedford, but we do know a bit about its history. The venue originally opened as the Royal County Theatre in the premises of what was an auction house constructed in 1893. On the 1st April 1899 it opened to a performance of “Brother Officers” by Arthur Bourchier. The exterior was damaged by bomb blast on the 23rd July 1942 during Bedford’s worst air raid of the war. The theatre was given a major refurbishment in 1957, but closed three years later after a run of the play “The Long and the Short and the Tall” by Willis Hall. The venue then re-opened as a bingo hall in 1961 eventually closeing in 1995. Latterly the building became The Mount Zion Pentecostal Church, which it remains today.
If you have any further details that may assist us, and you would like to share them with our readers, we would love to hear from you. If you let us know what you know, we will put the details online with your name credited (if you wish, or we can credit the article as anonymous). You will be doing a service to the bingo community and posterity by helping us record details of all Britain’s bingo clubs and halls. Thank you.
By Gareth Whieldon/Ian Grundy/Chris Hayes (April 2018)
