Durham Apollo Bingo – Sherburn Road

Durham’s Apollo Bingo had one of the more tangled corporate histories in this whole collection, but the building itself started out as the Majestic Cinema, opening on 29 August 1938 in Gilesgate Moor. Built for Palladium (Durham) Ltd and operated by cinema entrepreneur Thomas Thompson, it seated 906 on an unusual stadium plan, with a raised rear section rather than a conventional overhanging balcony. It survived a serious fire in August 1956, reopening that December, but its cinema career ended just five years later, closing on 4 December 1961 with Elvis Presley’s Flaming Star as the final film. Bingo had actually started part-time before the cinema even closed, and the building went on to have a genuinely varied post-cinema life, later serving as a boxing club and, remarkably, a skateboard rink in 1978, before bingo eventually returned for good.

By the early 2000s it was operating as Top Ten Bingo, with planning records showing active investment in the building, extensions, a smoking shelter and new signage throughout the 2000s. When Top Ten restructured in 2014, several of its clubs, including Durham, became Apollo Bingo clubs, before being absorbed into the newly formed Majestic Bingo later that same year. Curiously, Majestic kept the Apollo name at Durham even after taking ownership, so the club traded as Apollo Bingo right up to its closure in the early 2020s, with no precise final session date confirmed. Majestic Bingo and developer Durham Grove Ltd subsequently proposed demolishing the site for a 138-bedroom student accommodation block, a plan that drew opposition from the City of Durham Trust but was ultimately approved. A formal building record was carried out in January 2024 ahead of demolition, and the old Majestic, having stood for 86 years, was finally cleared that year, leaving no trace of a building that ran through cinema, boxing, skateboarding and four different bingo brands.

Other Lost Halls In The Area

• Stanley Top Ten Bingo – Elite Buildings
• Sunderland Mecca Bingo – Holmeside
• Sunderland Top Ten Bingo – Silksworth Terrace
• Sunderland Top Ten Bingo – The Green
• Hartlepool Carlton Bingo – York Road

Here are some photos of the Durham Apollo Bingo on Sherburn Road 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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