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Glasgow, 908 Govan Road, Lyceum Cinema

Bingo Hall (20th Century), Cinema (20th Century)

Site Name Glasgow, 908 Govan Road, Lyceum Cinema

Classification Bingo Hall (20th Century), Cinema (20th Century)

Alternative Name(s) Mckechnie Street; County Bing0 Social Club

Canmore ID 172378

Site Number NS56NE 2336

NGR NS 55212 65882

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/172378

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
Canmore Disclaimer. © Copyright and database right 2024.

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Administrative Areas

  • Council Glasgow, City Of
  • Parish Govan (City Of Glasgow)
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District City Of Glasgow
  • Former County Lanarkshire

Recording Your Heritage Online

Lyceum Cinema, 908 Govan Road, McKechnie Street, 1937, C J McNair

On the site of an earlier burned-out music hall-turned-cinema, the new Super Cinema seated 2,600. Art Deco faience and glass below wide canopy around corner entrance. Brick upper walls each side of the curved and finned moulded glass block corner feature. Original features in circular foyer and 1938 projection equipment. Latterly a bingo hall, now awaiting a new use.

Taken from "Greater Glasgow: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Sam Small, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk

Site Management (18 June 2002)

Streamlined International Modern suburban super-cinema, converted to bingo hall and cinema 1974, and closed 2006. Strikingly positioned to fully exploit corner site with coloured brick faience and glass facade fronting circular foyer with void behind. Wide curved corner entrance with 5 broad doors and decorative tile banding under full-width cantilevered canopy giving way to 5 tall, back-lit, Cristol glass-block windows divided by sky-blue terracotta-tiled, reinforced concrete mullions (now, 2008, covered with banner) and surmounted by further canopy. Auditorium, aligned E-W some distance from entrance facade.

Designed by renowned cinema architects, CJ McNair and Elder, the Lyceum opened in December 1938 and was built to seat 2,600. The best preserved example of McNair and Elder's cinema work, the Lyceum is an important and rare example of a streamlined International Modern super-cinema. It forms an important part of the streetscape in Govan and it is a good example of cinema architecture in a city which was closely associated with the type, but where examples with this level of intactness are increasingly rare. The interior contains many surviving features of interest and continues the streamlined design of the exterior.

Built on the site of the 1898 Lyceum Music Hall which had been converted to a cinema in 1923 and burned down in 1937. A series of architectural plans dating from February to October 1938, show how ideas for a replacement structure evolved from a more simple traditional frontage incorporating shops at Govan Road to the final impressive design which utilises the difficult corner site to advertise its function and welcome patrons into what was a brightly lit circular foyer. To reach the auditorium which runs parallel to Govan Road, a long walk and near 90 degree turn is required, but cleverly disguised. Early plans also allow for the opening up of a 'vomitory' at the centre front stalls leading from a separate entrance in McKechnie Street, presumably to be included if audience numbers were high enough. As such an entrance was subsequently built, numbers apparently rose to adequate levels. After being sold to County Bingo in 1974, subsequent conversion entailed adapting the stalls for bingo with a 480 seat cinema retained in the balcony. The cinema closed in 1981 and the bingo hall closed in 2006.

The architects, Charles John McNair and Robert Elder, had entered into partnership with Glasgow entrepreneur and cinema exhibitor George Urie Scott early in the 1930s. Together they formed the Cinema Construction Company, soon becoming one of the most prolific cinema design companies in Scotland, producing designs for independent cinemas as well as the ABC chain. Stylistic changes within the McNair and Elder partnership lead to the conclusion, based also on anecdotal evidence from Robert Forsyth a junior draughtsman with the practice at the time, that Elder was responsible for most of the designs, especially the interiors. (Historic Scotland)

Activities

Publication Account (2009)

The Lyceum was constructed in 1899, but was replaced by the present cinema after it was destroyed by fire in the 1930s (figs 5.54 & 5.55; Spalding 1994, 30; Williamson et al 1990, 596).

Information from ‘The Scottish Burgh Survey, Historic Govan: Archaeology and Development’ (2009).

Field Visit (16 November 2011)

A field visit was made to Govan Lyceum, with a view to recording the building prior to its proposed conversion into a community space and cinema.

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