O2 Academy Bournemouth

Opened as the Grand Pavilion Theatre, renamed Hippodrome in c.1910. Built as part of a development including the spacious Boscombe Arcade and Salisbury Hotel. The theatre front, in brick with stone dressings, is subservient to that of the arcade, and difficult to identify separately from the shops and former hotel on either side. It consists basically of three, very tall, mullioned and transomed windows each surmounted by a Flemish gable. The auditorium is most unusual and interesting, with the character of an early music hall. Above the flat main floor is a shallow balcony carried on iron columns with a semi-circular end and straight side arms and an openwork iron balustrade incorporating acanthus leaf decoration. Tall, slender iron columns rise from the front edge of the balcony to support a curved ceiling and lateral arcade, with florid openwork spandrel decoration. A wide promenade runs around the rear of the balcony, above which, carried on a further ring of columns, is a second, shallower balcony set back behind the arcade. The galleries originally ran straight up to the proscenium wall, but in 1910 a range of paired boxes was put in either side, flanked by giant composite columns and decorated with Baroque plasterwork. At the same time the proscenium was reconstructed - a tall plaster frame, straight-headed with rounded corners. Proscenium 26ft, stage depth 37ft, grid approximately 50ft. In December 1982 it reopened as The Academy night club with a flat floor but the stage and flying facilities remaining in place. The main auditorium is still the heart of the venue which became a music venue 2009 following a major refurbishment in 2006. Planning permission was granted in 2014 for architects Anders Roberts Cheer to convert the upper floors of the Grade II Listed Royal Arcade into 28 residential apartments.