Royal Court Theatre

Situated away from the town centre on the side of a steep slope with entrance at upper level, through a completely plain and featureless exterior. The building was originally constructed c.1850 as the Henrietta Street Iron Works. The factory was plagued by fires, one occurring in 1867 and another in 1886 when the building was gutted and became dangerous. It was eventually bought in 1892 by John Walters and W A Love who resolved to turn it into a theatre.

It opened in 1893, incorporating some of the external walls of the foundry. The back wall of the stage still has the derelict window frames of the gutted factory. Internally it originally had two balconies, the upper split into gallery and upper circle. However, in 1948 an architect’s report suggested that a pillar supporting the upper circle was unsafe (this turned out to be incorrect!) and the upper circle was removed and the circle tier continued up to the back of the theatre.

Today the interior of the theatre is heavily altered from from its 1893 form, the obvious remnants being the cast iron columns that support the dress circle. The decorative finish of the auditorium is very dark and ‘pseudo-1930s’, probably the result of many unco-ordinated alterations, the main one being almost certainly in 1948.