Middlesbrough Empire

Heritage listing

Details MIDDLESBROUGH CORPORATION ROAD, NZ 4920 SE south side. 9/21 Empire Mecca Social Club. II* G.V. Theatre, 1896/99 by Ernest Runtz (London). Mid C20 canopy. Now used as social club. Steel-framed, with terracotta (Doulton & Co.) facings, painted below canopy. Brick at rear. Lakeland slate roof at front. Largely flat roof on auditorium. Welsh slate roofs at rear. Lead-clad domes. Spanish Baroque style. 4-stage, one-bay towers flank 2-storey centre with mezzanine. Continuous moulded plinth. Centre has 4 doors, alternately blocked and renewed, under lintels with enriched cartouches and paired segment-headed overlights, in enriched pilaster surrounds with continuous cornice. Canopy, suspended from iron ties cuts across lintels and towers and extends along returns. Renewed fascia sign fills mezzanine, flanked by colonnettes with tulip feet to shafts and scrolled flame finials. Slightly-recessed 1+5+1-bay first floor. Renewed round-headed windows in middle bays, with keyed archivolts and balustraded aprons. Enriched quasi-Composite columns on pedestals, with continuous shallow frieze and cornice and inverted consoles, between bays. Blind end bays have enriched bas-relief escutcheons. Rendered brick oversailing band below straight parapet with late C20 applied illuminated letters. Steeply pitched roof. Towers each have 2-light window with column mullion, below canopy. Square window in applied Composite pedimented aedicule, with enriched frieze and continuous cornices, in 2nd stage. Sculptured phoenix clasping outer corner on 3rd stage. Oversailing band on enriched consoles, between 3rd and 4th stages, the latter with paired rectangular windows under enriched escutcheon flanked by plain pilaster strips. Chamfered angles at top of 4th stage. Cornice and scalloped parapet wit

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.