Dumbarton Carlton Bingo – College Way

Dumbarton’s Carlton Bingo occupied a building with a genuinely long entertainment history, though the sources disagree slightly on the exact dates. One commercial property listing gives the building as constructed in 1933 as a cinema called The Rialto, later converted into a bingo hall in 1994. An older bingo directory instead traces it back further, describing a cinema opening in 1914 that took on the Rialto name in 1927, with the building split between bingo and cinema use from 1981 before the cinema side eventually closed around 1993. Either way, the building’s fate was the same: cinema use gave way entirely to bingo, with the old cinema space upstairs left unused for storage once bingo took over the stalls.

The club traded for years as part of the Carlton Bingo chain, a Scottish and northern English operator formed in 1998 that ran around 13 clubs, offering a recently refurbished bistro, bar and fruit machines alongside the bingo itself, right in Dumbarton town centre and within easy walking distance of Dumbarton Central railway station. The venue had at least one brush with crime in its later years, with police investigating an attempted break-in at the rear of the building in March 2021. Property listings now describe the site as a former bingo hall, available to lease, with local directories marking it as closed. So the building’s history runs from an early 20th century cinema, through decades as the Rialto, to a long run as Carlton Bingo, and finally to its current status as a vacant commercial property in the heart of Dumbarton.

Other Lost Halls In The Area

• Glasgow Caesars Bingo – Sauchiehall Street
• Glasgow County Bingo – Eglinton Street
• Glasgow Fox Bingo – Easterhouse Township Centre
• Glasgow Gala Bingo – Cowglen Road
• Glasgow Savoy Bingo – Main Street
• Glasgow Mecca Bingo (Rutherglen) – Main Street
• Denny Beach Bingo – Glasgow Road
• Glasgow Centre Bingo And Social Club – Cross Arthurlie Street
• Glasgow Gala Bingo – Woodneuk Rd
• Glasgow Lyceum Bingo – Govan Road
• Glasgow Maryhill Gala Bingo – Craigmont Drive

Here are some photos of the Dumbarton Carlton Bingo on College Way from Twitter and Facebook, to give you a flavour of the club, its customers and decoration. The photographers are unknown, but if one of these is yours let us know and we’ll add a credit.

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