Friday Photo: The Royalty, Harborne
Today‘s Friday photo is of the neglected looking Royalty Cinema in Harborne. Opening in October 1930, the building was originally designed by architect Horace G. Bradley for Selly Oak Pictures Ltd. It is now Grade II listed and one of many cinemas Bradley designed for locations throughout Birmingham. The cinema closed in 1963 and was used intermittently as a bingo hall. One of the reasons for listing given by English Heritage was the completeness of the building – it is rare that cinemas of this period survive so well preserved. The building has retained its wonderful stylised Art Deco interior; with original tiled floor in the entrance, richly decorated plaster and intricate ventilation panels decorated in bold colours and gold detailing. It looks as though the building has a promising future – a ‘Harborne Royalty Trust’ is being set up and formal discussions for potential future uses are taking place. A more detailed history of the building and news updates can be viewed on their website (link here)
Hopefully a use will be found for The Royalty in Harborne…..with the proximity of the students at Birmingham University in Smelly Poke and Birmingham City University in Westbourne Road in nearby Edgbaston could not this fantastic Art Deco building be turned into a nightclub….away from the excesses of Broad Street and Five Ways……? Just a thought…..it needs a brave leisure sector entrepreneur to believe in Birmingham and ‘Have a Hope in Harborne’…….it depends whether the building in its new imagination would make more money for the investor as a site for a redeveloped flats/apartments scheme or for leisure uses as a club….Come on #Birmingham have ‘Faith in the City of Birmingham’