Date of closure: 26th February 2023
Address (for reference only):
Mecca Bingo (Lost Halls)
56 Washway Road
Sale
M33 7RA
Sale is one of the most unusual buildings ever to become a bingo hall, having never been a cinema at all but a 1930s lido. It opened on 10 July 1935 as Sale Lido, a genuinely ambitious leisure complex built around a 130-foot covered swimming pool, complete with a domed solarium for sunbathing, cafés, restaurants and retail units, all wrapped in classic Streamline Moderne architecture with sweeping curves and white rendered walls. Cleverly, the pool could be covered over in winter to create a huge dance floor, and when Mecca took over the complex in the 1960s it became the Locarno Ballroom, part of the company’s famous dance hall chain. As ballroom dancing declined in the 1970s, Mecca converted the building again into Mecca Bingo Sale, with players occupying the same space that had once held thousands of swimmers and dancers.
There were no cinema balconies or proscenium arches here, just the original curved frontage and streamlined Art Deco styling that made it one of the most distinctive bingo halls in the country. While it was open it offered traditional paper bingo alongside Mecca Max electronic terminals, gaming machines, a licensed bar and food service, but it was the fiercely loyal, multi-generational customer base that people remembered most, many of whom had stories about swimming or dancing there long before they ever played bingo. The club closed permanently on 26 February 2023, ending 48 years of bingo and almost 88 years of continuous leisure use on the site, with Rank choosing not to renew its lease due to the building’s poor state of repair. Since then, developers have proposed keeping the historic frontage while replacing the rest of the complex with housing, a plan that has divided local opinion.
Other Lost Halls In The Area
- Stockport Mecca Bingo – Mersey Square
- Stockport Walkers Bingo – Wellington Road
- Manchester Belle Vue Buzz Bingo – Kirkmanshulme Lane
- Manchester Mecca Bingo – Derby Street
- Manchester Mecca Bingo – Levenshulme
- Manchester Mecca Bingo – Preston Street
- Manchester Buckingham Bingo – Wilmslow Road
- Manchester Harpurhey Buzz Bingo – North City Shopping Centre
- Manchester Wythenshawe Buzz Bingo – Rowlandsway
- Eccles Crown Bingo – Church Street
Here are some photos of the Sale Mecca Bingo on Washway 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.
Also, if you have photos to add here, please contact us here to share them.
The staff are so rude its almost as if they don’t want to work there. Members can’t take the cars as kids could break in to them. It only seats about 155 out of the club coz they dont want the rest of the club open to members. The food is below standard, the paint work on the outside is falling off the walls. If anything people are going to Club3000 and that is more than 1 1/2 miles down the road in Old Trafford. So please if anything tell people not to go there as if they want to see rats coming off their food. Go there, but if not, go somewhere better.