London – Beacon Bingo Streatham – Streatham Hill

Streatham Hill Beacon Bingo was located on the main high road, and had a bar and diner. Prior to bingo, it was the Streatham Hill Theatre, which opened in 1929, and much of the original interior decor and external facade still remain. This is good news, as the interior contains a lot of ornate plaster work, as well as carefully crafted ceiling features. The good condition of the club persists despite a direct bomb hit in WW2, as the theatre was fully restored after the war. Amazingly this was done to the original designs, in age when the craftsmen required to recreate the original features must have been very difficult to find. Being located in the highly populous Streatham area, the theatre’s program was highly varied, to reflect many tastes, from borderline variety to traditional stage plays. The theatre closed in 1962, and bingo commenced, initially operated by Mecca Bingo, then Beacon Bingo.

We don’t know exactly why the hall closed in 2017, and we’re quite shocked as it had appeared to be one of the more succesful clubs over the past decade. There is now a Cashino in the venue’s loobby.

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 (March 2017)