Knightstone Pavilion & Opera House

The Knightstone was a ‘barren outcrop’ of an island, bought by Dr Edward Fox, a spa doctor from Brislington. He established a practice in a large house with medicinal baths, establishing the town as a health resort. The island was purchased by the council on his death, and a portion of Glentworthy Bay enclosed by a retaining wall, making sufficient room to build a theatre which opened in 1902.

A good example of a typical seaside all-purpose hall/theatre on a tongue of land jutting out to sea. A long, low pitched-roofed hall, partly stone and partly rendered. On the entrance side the gable of the hall is flanked by square Italianate towers with low pyramid roofs. Projecting forward from each of these is a two-storeyed gable-ended wing with a low entrance foyer fitted between, now altered. At the stage end of the hall roof (there is no fly tower) are smaller square towers with depressed domes. Stretching between these and the bigger towers at the front are low colonnades of coupled Tuscan columns with balustraded parapets. These form open promenades at the sides of the auditorium, reached by means of wide, segmentally-arched windows.

The auditorium is a long rectangular hall with a segmental barrel-vaulted ceiling. The main floor was originally flat but a rake was provided in 1958. At the rear is a straight balcony which continues along the sides where it is supported at the front edge by square piers in five bays. These rise above the level of the balcony and are linked by segmental arches below the ceiling. Very restrained plasterwork.

Closed at the beginning of World War II, when it served as a battledress factory, it reopened in 1942. In 1978, the seating was removed for leisure centre use. There may have been other alterations.