View of the art-deco Regent Cinema, behind the new sea defences, Deal, kent. The timeball tower is on the left.
The Regent, a former bingo hall on the Deal seafront, has been empty for a number of years. During 2011, Dover District Council sold the building to Silver Screen Cinemas and in July 2013 a planning application was submitted for the refurbishment of the building into a three screen cinema with cafe/restaurant and snack bar. In 1928 the Lord Warden of the Cinque ports, Lord Beauchamp officially opened the Pavilion Theatre on Deal’s seafront. Deal council was not commercially successful in running it and in 1933 it was leased to two local business men, Jack Boyer & Harry Carey. With the help of architect Percy Levett, In six weeks and costing £7000 it was transformed into the Regent Cinema. The Regent Cinema opened for business on 9th June 1933 with a seating capacity of 911. Until the Odeon was built three years later it was the largest cinema in Deal. Despite being next to the sea, business continued as normal throughout the war, apart from days when the enemy made it impossible to continue. During the war a powerful searchlight was placed on the roof with the power being supplied by a Lister generator installed by the time ball tower. The most popular of the early films when Billy Grant was the chief operator 1933 -1946 was King Kong. In the mid- forties the regent was taken over by ASER Cinema’s but as attendance’s fell in the 1950’s And despite an injection of X rated films the Regent Cinema closed in 1963 and later became a bingo hall. Deal Timeball is a Victorian maritime Greenwich Mean Time signal located on the roof of a waterfront four-storey tower in the coastal town of Deal, in Kent, England. It was established in 1855 by the Astronomer Royal George Biddell Airy in collaboration with Charles V. Walker, superintendent of telegraphs for the South Eastern Railway Company. It was built by the Lambeth firm of engineers Maudslay and Field. The timeball, fell at 1 pm precisely, was triggered by an electric signal directly from the Royal Observatory.
Size: 5493px × 3585px
Location: Deal, Kent.
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1930, architecture, art, bingo, cinama, cinema, deal, deco, hall, historic, kent, pavilion, regent, seafront, theatre, timeball, tower
