Date of closure: TBC
Address (for reference only):
Top Rank Bingo
Caversham Road
Reading
RG1 8JG
This bingo hall was located in the old Majestic Ballroom on Caversham Road, close to the junction with Tudor Road. We have very little detail on the Majestic’s time as a bingo hall, but we know the building originally opened as a corn exchange in the 1930s before being converted into a dance hall. A recent email to the site would suggest that it was a bingo hall in 1968 as that was when the sender worked there. Looking around other places, I’m guessing it possibly closed in the late 1980s before being turned into a nightclub, and then later demolished to be replaced by flats. My theory is that it closed as a bingo hall when Top Rank moved to the more extensive new club on Station Hill (which has also subsequently been demolished). A photo of the club can be seen here (photo 11).
At the moment we do not have details of the events that led up to, or any of the circumstances surrounding the closure of the Top Rank Bingo Reading. If you have any 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 David Lloyd (January 2018)
I worked at the Top Rank Club which was the old Majestic Ballroom in Caversham Road, long since demolished. It was my first bingo management job in 1968. The club was very busy and hadn’t been open long when I started there, all seating was at tables and the bar was in a separate room. I don’t remember there being a stage as such, not too sure but do remember the abattoir close by where there was often a sound of squealing pigs!
I worked at Caversham Road bingo hall and was there when we moved to Station Hill at the Top Rank Club. Ted Roger’s from 321 was the guest opening the club. Loved working there I started off on the floor but ended up working the bar and checking claims etc when short staffed. My name then was Irene Newington.
I was manager at the Top Rank bingo club in Reading. I would love to hear from anybody that remembers me.