The Palladium opened as the Hockley Picture House on 15th Nov 1911and housed 506 seats. Later on, it was redesigned to a larger size by the architect L.L. Dussault - who also designed the Imperial Cinema in Birmingham - and subsequently re-built. It reopened as the New Palladium Cinema on 8th November 1922. The opening film was Isobel Elsom in "The Game of Life".

 

The 3-storey building had a tiled mansard roof on top of its facade. Inside the auditorium, there was an elegant decorative scheme and seating was locating in stalls and circle levels. The projection box was located beneath the circle, above the rear stalls seating area.

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From 22nd October 1936, it was taken over by the Associated British Cinemas(ABC) chain, and was re-named Palladium Cinema. It continued to operate successfully as an inner city neighbourhood cinema for many years.

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The Palladium Cinema was closed on 13th February 1965 with Gerald Hatray in "The Spy" and Francoise Arnoul in "Daggers Drawn"(A Couteaux Tires). It became a bingo club, which operated until closing in the late-1970’s.

 

The building has been without use ever since and has ended up in a decayed state as it stands idly by the flyover without purpose.

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The explore was fairly straight forward as entry is relatively easy. Inside some original features still remain and signs of it being used as a bingo hall. It is also a mess inside with lots of the seating having been ripped out. As with most cinemas of this vintage, the colours are still spectacular inside if a little dulled. The sweeping orange arched ceiling catches the eye as its paint peels and drops off on to the floor below. 

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I'd imagine this cinema is destined for the demolition team as no one seems to want to renovate it and as far as I can see there are no plans to do anything with it. ​