Hartlepool Carlton Bingo – York Road

The club did used to be the Essoldo, a cinema which opened in 1936 under the name the Regal. With 1668 seats, it was quite a large cinema for the population, so it must have had quite a lot of travelling visitors. The original exterior tiling appears to be in a good state of repair, and as you can see from the photos below, the building had and still has some interesting internal features. Cinema screenings stopped in the 1960s and the premises have hosted bingo ever since. If you have any further details we’d like to hear from you, so please contact us. We would love to hear from you if you can help us with these and any other details and interesting facts about this club.

Hartlepool Mail Closure Article

The majority of the photos below came from cinema photographer Ian Grundy, the last one being provided by Carlton Bingo themselves. As you can see, the club resides in what used to be a cinema, which has been relatively unaltered in the transformation to bingo usage. This is great as often a conversion can mean a wrecking of the original decor and structure, which has happened to some of the many cinemas and theatres that have been converted into bingo halls across the country.

It’s good to see a close up of the arch windows from the inside, and also the tiling that covered the exterior of the building. Hats off to Carlton Bingo for managing to keep the premises in good shape.