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Summary

Description

George Beattie and Son, 1885, heightened 2 storeys by George Craig, 1894. 3-storey and attic 3-bay corner block with some Moorish details, originally built as Turkish baths, converted to cinema in 1920 and currently occupied by Destiny Church (2007). Cream sandstone, squared and snecked rubble with polished dressings. Base course; cill course at 1st and 2nd floor; bracketted cills; ashlar eaves band; architraved windows; horseshoe-arched openings to ground floor of principal elevation.

NE (FRONT) ELEVATION: corniced and pilastered doorway at centre with 2 smaller windows flanking, panels of stylised Moorish motifs to pilasters, stylised brackets to cornice, distinctively panelled door and plate glass fanlight; window at 1st floor; bipartite window at 2nd floor; wallhead breaking eaves in pediment with half-moon finial, horseshoe-surround to porthole window and flanking short pilasters surmounted by wallhead stacks. Bay to left with chamfered corner at ground floor, window with chamfered reveals; canted angle windows above at 1st and 2nd floor; small leaded onion dome above wallhead. Bay to right with window at ground floor; canted angle windows and dome as above.

SE ELEVATION: part-rendered; irregularly-spaced windows, secondary doorway; wallhead stack.

Timber sash and case windows with plate glass glazing. Slate roof; 3 wallhead stacks (see above), wallhead stack to NW.

INTERIOR: seen (2007). Impressive, white-painted open auditorium with good quality, intricately detailed plasterwork. Gallery to rear with floral design plasterwork to balcony front. Glass and timber screen below. Pilastered round-arched blind arcading to walls with carved plaster capitals with angel heads. Proscenium arch to rare plaster screen (see Notes) to one wall with central Baroque cartouche. Some late 20th century alterations.

Statement of Special Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. This is a particularly interesting building with unusual detailing which has gone through a remarkable series of uses. Built originally as Turkish Baths, the building has unusual Moorish detailing to the exterior, especially in the doorway and onion-shaped domes, and it is a distinctive addition to the streetscape. Internally, there is a large hall-type space probably created when the building was converted to cinema use in 1920. It has impressive intricate plasterwork. The building contains a rare example of a plaster screen within the proscenium arch which dates from its previous use as a cinema.

The building was constructed in 1885 by the well-known Edinburgh family firm George Beattie & Son as a Turkish Bath. In 1920, the building was converted to a cinema. The .plaster decoration is most likely to date from this time of conversion. The plaster screen is a rare survivor, as these were usually removed to make way for sound equipment behind later screens. This one has survived because the building ceased being a cinema in the early 1930s and was subsequently converted into a church.

List description updated and category changed from C(S) to B as part of the Cinemas Thematic Study 2007-08.

References

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