Description

CLARENCE STREET
Nos 154-166, Former Granada Cinema,

(Formerly listed as Granada Cinema, 154-156 Clarence Street, previously listed under RICHMOND ROAD)

Former cinema. 1939. Designed by George Coles with interior by Komisarjevsky. Brick. two storeys to facade. Plate glass replacement entrance doors to ground floor, beneath cantilevered canopy. Three arched windows to first floor, with three oculi above. Rectangular tower to right with later C20 lettering. Fine interior including double height entrance hall with heavy coffered ceiling and triple arch motifs to walls etc and main auditorium with plastered proscenium flanked by triple arch motifs with decorative grilles rounded to ceiling etc. Original light fittings.

Listing NGR: TQ1833669438

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 11/04/2018

History

Kingston upon Thames, historically in Surrey, was an important market town, port and river crossing from the early medieval period, while there is evidence of Saxon settlement and of activity dating from the prehistoric period and of Roman occupation. It is close to the important historic royal estates at Hampton Court, Bushy Park, Richmond and Richmond Park. The old core of the town, around All Saints Church (C14 and C15, on an earlier site) and Market Place, with its recognisably medieval street pattern, is ‘the best preserved of its type in outer London’ (Pevsner and Cherry, London: South, 1983 p. 307). Kingston thrived first as an agricultural and market town and on its historic industries of malting, brewing and tanning, salmon fishing and timber exporting, before expanding rapidly as a suburb after the arrival of the railway in the 1860s. In the later C19 it become a centre of local government, and in the early C20 became an important shopping and commercial centre. Its rich diversity of buildings and structures from all periods reflect the multi-facetted development of the town.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26640861

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)