Assembly Rooms Theatre (Bromsgrove)

• Theatre ID
  1722
• Built / Converted
  1907
• Dates of use
  • 1918 - 1914
• Current state
  Fragmental remains
• Current use
  converted to other use (Shopping arcade)
• Address
  The Strand, Bromsgrove, West Midlands, England

Details

The theatre was originally a touring venue, but of very simple assembly room form. It seems to have been a rear addition to an earlier building. The three-storey, five-bay frontage building, although now much altered, looks as if it may have been of early nineteenth or even eighteenth century date. Old photographs displayed on site show a flat-floored auditorium with an open pitched roof and a shallow balcony with flat, boarded front and no side slips. The proscenium opening occupied most of the width of the hall. The building became a surgical dressings factory during the Great War. A cine projection box was added some time after 1918. After 1924 it was owned by the Co-op. It had been converted into a shopping arcade (Strand Gallery) by 1994.

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• Other names
  Empress Theatre
• Events
  • 1918 - 1914 Use:
  • 1907 Design/Construction: theatre added at rear of existing building
    • Unknown - Architect
  • 1994 Alteration: converted to shopping arcade
    • Unknown - Architect
  • 1908 Owner/Management: & 1912: W Watton & Son
• Capacities
  • Original: c.400
  • Later: 1908: 500 1912: 500
• Listings
  • Grade Not listed
• Dimensions
  • Building dimensions: l: 106ft w: 28ft 9in; auditorium c.74ft x 28ft 9in
  • Stage dimensions: d: 19ft w: 27ft wall to wall
  • Proscenium width: 19ft x 13ft high