Date of closure: November 2021
Address (for reference only):
Majestic Bingo (Lost Halls)
Camp Hill Road
Nuneaton
CV10 0JP
Nuneaton’s Grand Bingo had one of the longest continuous runs of any old cinema conversion, spending roughly 60 years as a bingo hall against just 32 as a cinema. The building opened as the Grand Cinema in 1929, seating around 375, before being substantially rebuilt and enlarged by Bradley & Clarke in 1937 to 1938. That reconstruction pushed capacity to around 500 and gave the building its lasting Art Deco character, complete with a Vitrolite-tiled frontage, a 24-foot proscenium, RCA sound and Holophane lighting, reopening on 11 July 1938. Its cinema career didn’t last much longer though, with Miles Jervis Cinemas taking over in 1959 and the final film, Shane, shown on 11 August 1961, after which the building converted to bingo.
It traded for decades as the locally rooted Grand Bingo & Social Club, retaining that independent identity rather than being folded into a national chain, and developed a proper community character, including a basement bar dating from 1976 with food, drinks and table service. Majestic Bingo bought the club in April 2016, bringing its estate to 16 clubs, but sensibly kept the well-known Grand Bingo name rather than rebranding it. Historic England’s 2001 photographs are particularly valuable here, showing the original proscenium, stage and much of the old auditorium still clearly visible beneath the bingo fit-out. The club finally closed in November 2021, described at the time as Nuneaton’s last surviving bingo hall, and the building itself sold for £239,500 in March 2022. It stands as a proper old-school lost bingo hall, one where the cinema fabric beneath the bingo tables survived remarkably well right up until the very end.
Other Lost Halls In The Area
Michael Hess: Ritz Bingo, Newcastle Upon Tyne
Taken as a part of the Playing Bingo commission of Michael Hess to shoot a follow-up to his book, Bingo and Social Club. Find out more about the project here.
Taken on the 24th of April 2013, we can see from the first photo that the venue is either an old cinema or a theatre that has been very well maintained.
Photographs copyright Michael Hess April 2013. They cannot be reproduced without the permission of PlayingBingo.co.uk.
