Towers Cinema

The Towers Cinema was built on part of the former Grey Towers estate, a stately home which was demolished in 1931. During World War I, the estate had been requisitioned by the Army Council for use as a military hospital and army camp. A new cinema, named The Towers after the old mansion house, was built on the southern boundary of the Grey Towers estate, at the west end of Hornchurch High Street. The cinema was commissioned by David J. James, a brewing industrialist turned cinema impresario, for his D.J. James Cinema Circuit. It was designed by Leslie Hagger Kemp (1899–1997) and Frederick Edward Tasker, of the Kemp & Tasker partnership, which designed new and renovated existing cinemas for…

When the cinema was converted into a bingo hall, many alterations to the foyer and lower auditorium were made. The café-ballroom was divided into smaller offices by the installation of dividing walls and a false ceiling which covered a highly ornate coffered ceiling. Many other original features still remained, including the wall and ceiling decoration and the private boxes in the main auditorium. The architects' firm Kemp & Tasker designed a number of Art Deco cinemas in the south of England, among them the Odeon Cinemas in Romford and Stepney. Their Odeon Cinema building in St Albans, Hertfordshire was restored and re-opened in 2015. Leslie Hagger Kemp designed the former Union Cinema in…