| Opera House | |
|---|---|
 The Opera House | |
 | |
| General information | |
| Status | Open |
| Type | Opera house |
| Architectural style | Edwardian Baroque |
| Town or city | Royal Tunbridge Wells |
| Country | England |
| Groundbreaking | 1901-10-10 |
| Completed | 1902 |
| Opened | 1902 |
| Renovated | 1996 |
| Owner | J D Wetherspoon |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | John Briggs |
| Awards and prizes | Grade II listed building |
The Opera House is a former opera house and current pub in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. It is a Grade II listed building. [1]
Construction was completed in 1902 to designs by architect John Briggs. [2] When it was opened, it had a capacity of 1,100. In 1913, the Opera House hosted a series of charity fundraising concerts gather funds to rebuild the Nevill Ground's cricket pavilion after the original pavilion was destroyed in a suffragette arson attack. [3] The Opera House was purchased by Union Cinemas in 1931 and turned into a cinema. [4]
The Opera House was bombed in the Second World War. The bomb did not explode but instead got caught in the proscenium arch above the stage and set fire to the inside of the Opera House, leading to a renovation before eventual re-opening in 1949. [5] It was later turned into a bingo hall in the 1960s after threats to demolish it. [5] [6] In November 1966, the Opera House was granted Grade II listed status. [1]
In 1996, the Opera House was purchased by J D Wetherspoon and was turned into a public house. [2] In 2006, the Opera House again hosted an opera performance, of Handel's Tamerlano . [7] More recently there have been annual performances by Kent-based ‘The Merry Opera Company’ with Troy Boy, La traviata , The Magic Flute , Kiss Me, Figaro!, [8] The Barber of Seville, and in 2016, La Boheme. [9]
The interior was designed in Edwardian Baroque and Neo-Georgian styles. The exterior includes a Baroque dome on the roof. [2] The dome originally had a nude statue of Mercury on the top, which was removed in the 1920s, either because it was unstable in poor weather or was viewed as sinful by local residents. [5] In 1923, the main staircase was altered to include an 18th-century painting of revelers. [1]
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces the French department of Pas-de-Calais across the Strait of Dover. The county town is Maidstone. It is the fifth most populous county in England, the most populous non-Metropolitan county and the most populous of the home counties.
Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, 30 miles southeast of central London, close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Rocks. The town was a spa in the Restoration and a fashionable resort in the mid-1700s under Beau Nash when the Pantiles, and its chalybeate spring, attracted visitors who wished to take the waters. Though its popularity as a spa town waned with the advent of sea bathing, the town still derives much of its income from tourism.
Buxton Opera House is in The Square, Buxton, Derbyshire, England. It is a 902-seat opera house that hosts the annual Buxton Festival and, from 1994 to 2013, the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, among others, as well as pantomime at Christmas, musicals and other entertainments year-round. Hosting live performances until 1927, the theatre then was used mostly as a cinema until 1976. In 1979, it was refurbished and reopened as a venue for live performance.
Matfield is a small village, part of the civil parish of Brenchley and Matfield, in the Tunbridge Wells borough of Kent, England. Matfield was awarded the title of Kent Village of the Year in 2010.
The Academy Cinema is a historic building on Cheltenham Road in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol, England. Since its construction in 1914 it has been used for many purposes. It is a Grade II listed building.
The Nevill Ground is a cricket ground at Royal Tunbridge Wells in the English county of Kent. It is owned by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and is used by Tunbridge Wells Cricket Club in the summer months and by Tunbridge Wells Hockey Club in the winter. It was opened in 1898 and was first used by Kent County Cricket Club in 1901. The county has held the Tunbridge Wells Cricket Week on the ground annually, despite a suffragette arson attack which destroyed the pavilion in 1913.
The Tyne Theatre and Opera House is a theatre in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It is a Grade I listed building[1], rated "in the top 4% of listed buildings" by English Heritage and is afforded a three star rating by the Theatres Trust, "a very fine theatre of the highest theatrical and architectural quality". It opened in 1867 as the Tyne Theatre and Opera House, designed by the Newcastle upon Tyne architecture practice of William Parnell. The backstage area was damaged by fire in 1985, with subsequent rebuilding restoring the Victorian stage machinery.
The Salomons Museum is a museum north of Tunbridge Wells, in the county of Kent, southeast England. It preserves the country house of Sir David Salomons, the first Jewish Lord Mayor of London, and of his nephew, Sir David Lionel Salomons, a scientist and engineer. Originally called Broomhill, the house is now called Salomons. The museum is managed by Markerstudy Group.
Clayton & Black were a firm of architects and surveyors from Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. In a career spanning the Victorian, Edwardian and interwar eras, they were responsible for designing and constructing an eclectic range of buildings in the growing town of Brighton and its neighbour Hove. Their work encompassed new residential, commercial, industrial and civic buildings, shopping arcades, churches, schools, cinemas and pubs, and alterations to hotels and other buildings. Later reconstituted as Clayton, Black & Daviel, the company designed some churches in the postwar period.
The building at 155–158 North Street in Brighton, part of the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove, was built between 1921 and 1923 as a branch of National Provincial Bank. The King Louis-style bank was built on the site of several shops. The properties were acquired by the National Provincial Bank during 1916–20. The Brighton Gazette had occupied 155a North Street since 1910, when its long-time home at number 150 was converted into the Cinema de Luxe. Published by William James Towner, the paper’s full title was the Brighton Gazette, Hove Post and Sussex Telegraph. In 2011 it became J D Wetherspoon's second pub in central Brighton. One of many buildings by the prolific local architecture firm of Clayton & Black, whose work in various styles can be found across the city, it forms an important component of the range of banks, offices and commercial buildings on North Street—a significant commercial thoroughfare since the 18th century. In particular, the "good attention to detail" shown throughout the building's Louis XIV-style façade has been praised. English Heritage has listed it at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
The Church of King Charles the Martyr is a Church of England parish church in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. It is a Grade I listed building.
The Normansfield Theatre is a Victorian era building in Teddington, England.
The Queens Arms is a Grade II listed public house at Hartfield Road, Cowden Pound, Kent TN8 5NP.
Tunbridge Wells Cricket Club is an amateur cricket club in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. It was founded in 1782 and they play their home matches at the Nevill Ground. As of 2019 they play in the Kent Cricket League Premier Division.
Tottenham Lane is a street in Crouch End and Hornsey in the London Borough of Haringey. The street runs from the centre of Crouch End at the clock tower, north to the junction of the High Street and Turnpike Lane (A504).
The Golden Beam is a pub and Grade II listed building located in the Headingley area of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was built in c. 1912 for the Church of Christ, Scientist, and was known as the Elinor Lupton Centre from 1986 to 2010 when it was a school arts centre. It was designed by Piet de Jong and William Peel Schofield from the architectural firm Schofield and Berry. Constructed in white Portland stone in a mixed style of Egyptian Revival and Art Deco, it was originally built as a Sunday school in c. 1912–1914, extended in the 1930s with a church building and then used by the Leeds Girls' High School as a theatre and music centre from 1986 until 2010. The structure has architectural significance in the locality due to its distinct style and use of materials; many original features and fittings survive, including the entrance foyer, two staircases and a glazed lantern in the auditorium roof.
Buxton Pavilion Gardens is a Victorian landscaped public park in the spa town of Buxton in Derbyshire. The River Wye flows through the gardens, which are a Grade II* listed public park of Special Historic Interest.
The Pavilion Arts Centre was opened in 1889 as the new Entertainment Stage theatre on St John's Road in Buxton, Derbyshire, England. It is part of the Pavilion Gardens complex of buildings in the town's central Conservation Area. It has a main 360-seat theatre, and since 2017 it has been the home of Buxton Cinema.
The Picture House is a pub and former cinema in Stafford, Staffordshire, England. It was built in 1913, and is a Grade II listed building; it is described in the listing as "A good example of an early cinema retaining interior features."
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