Winter Gardens

Not strictly a theatre or music hall but a seaside holiday pavilion, a place of relaxation, regularly used in the past for a variety of entertainments. The original Winter Gardens building in Torquay (q.v.) was transported by sea to Great Yarmouth, where it was re-erected on the sea front alongside Wellington Pier. Here it enjoyed the success that it failed to achieve in Torquay. It is an enjoyable iron and glass building with its roof rising to a pyramidal centre. The social conditions and industrial processes which made this kind of building popular and viable in their time will never recur and it is therefore a valuable survival that should be jealously safeguarded and maintained. The Winter Gardens was closed in 2008 due to fears that the building fabric was dangerous. In 2015, it was announced that a number of organisations including the local council are working on a business plan to restore the building.