Woking Buzz Bingo – Church Street East

Woking’s Buzz Bingo was a modern town-centre club rather than a converted cinema, occupying premises in the H.G. Wells Building at Crown Square, close to the railway station and the Big Apple entertainment complex. It offered the standard package of paper and electronic bingo, gaming machines, a bar and diner, hearing loop and disabled facilities, without its own dedicated car park, instead relying on the large nearby Victoria Way car park with around 700 spaces. It began life as Gala Bingo Woking before becoming Buzz Bingo in 2018 as part of the wider estate rebrand, and despite lacking any architectural pedigree, it was clearly well used locally, with a Surrey Heath town-centre study finding it held the largest bingo market share in its survey area at 28.9%.

It’s worth being clear that this was a completely separate building from Woking’s older, more architecturally interesting bingo history. The former Ritz Cinema on Church Street East opened in 1937 with 1,518 seats and a Compton organ, had its stalls converted to bingo in 1972 while a smaller cinema ran upstairs in the old circle, and closed as bingo in 1987 before being demolished entirely in 1988, decades before Buzz Woking ever closed. Crown Square carried on independently until it finally shut permanently on 28 June 2024, ending its run as one of Woking’s more solidly established, if architecturally unremarkable, bingo venues.

Other Lost Halls In The Area

• London – Gala Bingo Hounslow – Staines Road
• Bracknell Point Bingo – Skimped Hill Lane
• Wokingham Ritz Bingo – Easthampstead Road
• Aldershot Buzz Bingo – High Street
• Aldershot Bingo Plus – Victoria Road

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