Date of closure: 1973
Address (for reference only):
Independent Club
St George's Road
Brighton
BN2 1ED
We don’t know exactly why this club closed, but we do know that the building had quite an interesting history. Opened in 1934, the Odeon Cinema had almost a thousand seats split between the stalls and the circles. Disaster struck in September 1940 when it was bombed by the Germans, causing the loss of 59 lives. By December of the same year it had reopened and continued to show films until it closed in 1960. It reopened again in 1962 as a bingo hall under the name Top Rank Bingo, which closed in 1973. (In its latter years it did have a brief spell under independent ownership – as Kemp Town Bingo & Social Club). Sadly, after a stint as a centre for religion, it was demolished, and flats now stand on the site.
At the moment we do not have details of the events that led up to, or any of the circumstances surrounding the closure of the Top Rank Bingo Brighton. If you have any 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 (April 2012)
