Report - The Elysium Theatre, Swansea July 2014

[dweeb]

Visited with CatV on a bit of a Wales trip...

Not much info on this one, Cinema treasures is quite vague compared to most of the cinemas they have documented

A very impressive high fronted building at the top end of Swansea High Street just seconds away from the main line station. The Elysium Cinema opened on 11th April 1914 in a building which was part used as the Dock Workers Hall. It was designed by the architectural firm Ward & Ward of the Strand, London. It closed as a cinema in 1960 and went over to use as a bingo hall, which had closed by 1994. It has been boarded up for many years now.

This cinema/theatre is the one Swansea building of entertainment that never seems to get mentioned or anyone knows much about. Any info would be of great interest.

Been here a couple of times before but it's always been a favourite of mine, I could rummage in the piles of pigeon crap covered tat for hours. A relatively unspoilt example of a theatre/music hall which evolved into a cinema, and then the usual transition into Bingo.

A crawl through a hatch revealed a whole section of the building I had never seen before, which was the "Swansea and District Labour Hall and Institute" which was very reminiscent to a social club. Again the interior was very unspoilt and had a beautiful wood and glass corridor separating smaller rooms, leading to a large bar area with a stage. Interestingly the frosted glass windows had been installed at some point to modernise the room, and hid the most beautiful stained glass windows, perfectly preserved behind!

As I had been before I spent most of my time crawling through the cubbies to see what I could find, I didn't expect to happen across a third of the building which had until now remained unexplored!

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[Ojay]

The social club bit is win mate, shame there are very few examples left of these nowadays

 

[The Wombat]

Nice work Dweeb
looks good that

 

[Oxygen Thief]

That's amazing, wish I was there.

 

[Lenston]

Heard this place was well sealed up, never listen to locals

 

[Camera Shy]

Oooh I'd like me a bit of that. Great stuff dweeb.

 

[The Kwan]

Those seats lovely stuff.

 

[PCWOX]

A1 this. Looks like loads of nooks and crannies were discovered. Cool

 

[catbalou]

thats rather special. nice work

 

[Milleniumd]

Beautiful shots. Nice work.

 

[scruffyherrbert]

Thanks for the update, nice to see the place is still standing and with roof intact. Still hoping the owner will get in touch one day and negotiate a rescue of the machines, be a shame if some of them rotted away and never made it into my care

 

[ZerO81]

Quality report as ever, bet this place was beautiful in its day

 

[Wevsky]

Looks mashed to buggery but youve done well with it and there's some nice features left

 

[Bugsuperstar]

Very nice mate

 

[darn]

Great work I can't believe you stumbled across that on your THIRD visit as well, must have been well hidden? A blast from the past indeed... I could go through the pigeon shit letters as well, all the old stuff like that fascinates me!