Regal Cinema Oxford, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

612/0/10104 COWLEY ROAD 03-AUG-04 Regal Cinema

II Former cinema, now bingo hall. 1936-7 for Union Cinemas to the designs of Robert Cromie. Steel frame, clad in red brick with Portland stone details and rustication; some herringbone brickwork in base. Roofs not seen. Very high auditorium with balcony, reached through similarly tall, elaborate foyer and staircase hall. Dressing rooms and offices to rear not of special interest.

Main frontage a symmetrical, freestanding brick composition over storey-height base of banded rustication, with centre stepped forward and flanked by higher pylons. The centrepiece is a Portland stone box of two storeys and four bays, with margin-light glazed windows set between attenuated columns. Door surround now tiled, but with paired double doors below. Occulus in pylons, repeated on side elevations, where there are very tall staircase windows set between narrow paired columns. Banded rustication continues, terminating in exit doors in moulded Portland stone surrounds. The columns have narrow stylised capitals typical of Robert Cromie's work and indicative of the influence of Egyptian revival and Art Deco styles. Beyond, lining the auditorium, are eleven further engaged, paired columns set in blind arcades. Below, areas of herringbone brickwork formerly used for poster displays.

Double-height foyer with staircases to either side, linked by balcony at first-floor level now glazed in. Main foyer ceiling is trabeated with chandeliers; console brackets between the windows, plaster panels and engaged columns to side walls now set behind inserted later fire lobbies not of special interest; anthemion frieze to the balcony area, and urns and floreats to the steel balcony rail. Simpler chandeliers.

Main auditorium is also distinctively in Cromie¿s style. The proscenium survives, but has had a false ceiling inserted into the anteproscenium. Cromie made a feature of unadorned prosceniums at his Gaumont Palace, Hammersmith, and in his later work. Decorated grilles to side walls flanked by narrow columns, their mouldings repeated on a small scale on side walls within a ribbed band just below balcony level. The stall floor has been raised, and steps now lead down to the exit doors beneath the main grilles, and these are also set in ribbed surrounds. Banding to balcony front. Coved ceiling set in complex curves, particularly to the underside of the balcony and incorporating ventilation ducts.

Robert Cromie was one of the first architects to specialise in cinema design. He had come to prominence as a theatre architect, working for Bertie Crewe from 1910 to 1914 on the new auditorium at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in 1922. His success in cinema design began with the Davis, Croydon, in 1928 (demolished) and was followed by the Gaumont Palace, Hammersmith, originally also for the Davis family. Cromie later worked for Union Cinemas, whose bankruptcy - the result of their cinemas being too elaborate and costly - means that few of his late cinemas survive. This has been identified as one of the top two.