Listed Building: BOSCOMBE HIPPODROME AND ROYAL BALLROOMS (352107)

The following building shall be added:- BOURNEMOUTH SZ1191 CHRISTCHURCH ROAD, Boscombe 768-0/22/10021 (North side) Nos.568 -578 (Even) Boscombe Hippodrome [Royal Ballrooms] GV II Theatre. 1893-5, Lawson and Donkin for Archibald Beckett; altered in circa 1908. Red brick with stone dressings; slate roofs. PLAN: Built as part of a development that included the adjacent Royal Arcade [qv] and The Salisbury Hotel [demolished 1965]. Behind shops on Christchurch Road there is a foyer, stairs and billiard hall over the shops and a large auditorium with two U-shaped balconies, the lower of which has a promenade running behind Dutch Renaissance style. EXTERIOR: South front facing Christchurch Road; 2 storeys. Ground storey shops with later fascias applied and central theatre entrance with canopy. 2:3 bays above divided by pilasters and cornices and with tall plastered windows and Dutch gables with urns and balustrade parapets between; the left 2 bays have 3-light mullion-transom windows with segmental heads and carved stone panels and small attic windows above; the right 3 bays have 3 tall mullion-transom windows with round heads, the centre one foiled. INTERIOR: An unusual auditorium with the character of an earlier music hall. Around the stalls is a shallow U-shaped balcony carried on iron columns with a semi-circular end and straight sides, the balcony front an openwork iron balustrade with acanthus leaf decoration. Tall thin iron columns rise from the front of the balcony to support the ceiling with decorated openwork iron spandrels. A wide promenade runs around the back of the balcony. Above the promenade, supported on another ring of columns, is a second shallower balcony set back behind the arcade. The bench seating in the balconies survives but the stall seats have been removed. The balconies originally ran straight up to the proscenium wall, but in circa 1908 paired boxes were installed on either side in Baroque plasterwork and the proscenium was rebuilt. From the foyer at the front staircases with cast-iron balusters give access to the balconies and the large billiard hall over the shops. SOURCES: Brereton,C. Curtains [inventory], published 1982. Mate,C.H. and Riddle,C. Bournemouth 1810-1910 pp 155 and 212 Popham, D. and R. The Book of Bournemouth, pp 84 and 108. Young, D. The Storey of Bournemouth, pp 149-150. Listing NGR: SZ1139991910

Record last edited

May 13 2020 4:44PM