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The Elysium cinema first opened its doors to paying customers on the 11th of April 1914. It was located at the top end of High Street with in a stones throw of the Great Western Railway station. The building in which the cinema was erected was also home to the Swansea Dock Workers Hall and Institute throughout its life the building would serve a dual purpose. Entertainment for the people of Swansea on one level and beneath a club for the town's working men.
The Cinema was designed by Ward and Ward of the strand London its single auditorium was capable of seating 900 in stalls and its circle gallery. The cinema was equipped by Kalee one of the leading manufacturers of projection equipment at the time but they also supplied the cinemas cast iron seats. Although the Cinema was designed from the outset as a moving picture house the auditorium also featured a medium sized stage and a full fly tower capable of handling backdrops and scenery.
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Below the auditorium the Dock Workers Hall and Institute included a large ball room, ladies reading room and social bar. The land behind High Street drops down a steep hill side allowing the Dock Workers Hall plenty of space below the cinema. Both cinema and workingman's club were entered through an high fronted building on High street which still boasts an impressive Edwardian Facade. Also sharing the buildings ground floor along High street was a small shop which was home to a branch of W.H Smith's the stationers for a long time.
The Swansea docks were a major employer in the town during the early part of the twentieth century. It like many working men's clubs in south wales had strong links with the labor and socialist movement. eventually the Dock Workers Hall became home to the Labour Party in Swansea the party's local headquarters were located in the upper floors of the High Street building and the Dockworkers hall became the Swansea and District Labour Hall and Institute.
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During the 20's and 30's the ballroom at the labour hall became a popular venue for dance band music, meanwhile the cinema was still doing good business up above. The cinema and labour hall both remained open for the duration of the second world war, during which Swansea was the target of heavy bombing by the Luftwaffe. High street was at the heart of Swansea town centre and was the main shopping street, following the heaviest period of bombing known as the three day blitz the Elysium was one of only two buildings left standing on High Street. Following the war the town center was re developed and the city center shifted to the new Kingsway leaving the Elysium right on the edge of town audiences declined and by the late 1950's it was a shadow of its former self and the cinema closed for business in 1960. The Labour hall was still going strong though and its dance hall had became home to ballroom dance school.
A few years later the Elysium was reopened as Bingo club, it was redecorated in modern style with wood paneled walls and fresh a white suspended ceiling. The Cinema's entrance lobby was home to an amusements arcade with one armed bandits and other amusements machines its ceiling was decorated with strips of colored perspex lighting. Behind this a small reception area lead to the former stalls area in the auditorium where a two tier bingo hall was laid out complete with bar and fast food kitchen in the space below the stage. A suspended ceiling along the forward part of the auditorium cut the auditorium in half leaving the circle disused. The shop on High street had also been vacated by W.H Smiths and it reopened under new ownership as the Bingo Boutique.
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By the 1990's the bingo business was also declining, despite the installation of a modern electronic bingo system in the early 80's. The opening of a new purpose build bingo club by one of the large chains spelt the end for the Elysium and closed its doors for the last time in 1994. The Labour Hall's fortunes were also on the wane as working men's clubs became less popular in its last few years it traded as a private members club called the Elysium, Although its links with the Labour party were maintained right up until it closed in 1998, the Labour MP for the area held his surgery's at the club.
Since then the whole of the building has sat disused and boarded up. The local council have attempted to intervene and find a new used for the building despite its private ownership in 2006 they spent £40,000 of public money on a consultants survey of the building and report on possible reuse, This survey caused some controversy when the council refused to release the findings while the building still sat empty. In January this year the Swansea Housing Association announced a £22 million project to develop an Urban village on the upper part of High Street and with the assistance of the city council who have been executing compulsory purchase orders on the behalf hope to regenerate the area where the Elysium lies. It is yet to be seen if the building is to be included in the plans or will be simply demolished to make way for the development.
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I first saw the Elysium several months ago on a drive through swansea looking for interesting sites, The heavy boarding across the ground floor windows were an immediate eye opener although looking up at the impressive facade it gave no impression of what the building might contain was it an old office block or may be a town house fallen on hard times. The Labour Hall sign above the gated door was certainly interesting sounded like a working men's club to me. I had only visited one former working men's club before and it was hoping to find another so many have disappeared from the industrial heartland of South Wales as the industries their members worked in have declined. heading round the back for a better look at the building the auditorium soon be came obvious the roof ventilators and the fly tower were a give away somewhere in there was an early cinema or what ever was left of it. It was getting quite late that day so i made my way back to the car with another one on the list for a visit. A few months went by then it was finally time to take a proper look at the Elysium in the company of a locally based explorer.
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We were quite cautious as we made our way to the Elysium the presence of a drug rehabilitation center in the area made us a little nervous derelict buildings do seem to be magnets for drug users. After finding a open way into the building we quietly slipped inside to find an un promising hallway but it would lead on to an absolute gem The first room we encountered was the bar in the Labour Hall which you would have thought was only left yesterday not 10 years before glasses were still neatly lined up behind the bar, the ash trays stacked on the counter and the scores from the last game of darts still chalked on the black board. A picture of princess Diana was pinned up in the center of the clubs events board amongst the cards of taxi firms and the schedule of an MP's planned visits, The club would have closed less than a year after her death.
The bar is a fantastic relic of 1970's tastelessness, wood veneer every where and the bar decorated in bright formica, some of the pumps were also straight out of the 70's Albright Bitter next to Harp Lager even in 1998 £1.20 a pint must have been cheep. we headed through a door behind the bar in to a small office which was full of little treasures and enough bar ephemera to crash the ebay market for pub memorabilia loads of Stella bar mats and Worthington Best Bitter trays there was a time when i loved a pint of BB down the local club. A little more touching was the row of abandoned darts trophies the club must have had a successful team once upon a time i wonder where those players found to drink when the club shut its doors. Along one wall there is a small stage with an early Labour Party emblem emblazoned as a backdrop i could just imagine a club land comedian doing his act there in front of a busy bar, or may be once in a while the club secretaries allowed a striper to perform.
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After enjoying the retro atmosphere in the bar we moved on to find a fire escape heading up not knowing much about the layout of the building we didn't know what to expect as we moved up on to the ground floor of the building but as soon as we reached the first landing we came across another little treat hidden here on an unused stairwell between the club and cinema a modest but fantastic little edwardian stain glass window has escaped the 60's and 70's decor and sill lets in colored light through a thick curtain of cobwebs. As pretty as the window was it didn't hold our attention long turning a corner we were faced with the sight of a fully intact bingo hall. I had high hopes when we entered the building but wasn't expecting to find this. Most bingo halls are stripped out and empty once they have been closed but the Elysium hasn't been touched.
All the tables are neatly laid out in rows with the red velour seats neatly folded away the callers console now looks lonely and dark without electricity to light up its checkerboard of numbers. I once was a bingo caller during a holiday from university so standing behind it brought back lots of memories, don't ever get a bingo call wrong or you'll face the wrath of a hundred disgruntled grandmothers even without the Alzheimer's their all "Bingoing Crazy". looking around the room there are still lots of memento's of the clubs busy days a stack of unsold club lottery tickets is abandoned in a box near the door and bingo cards a scattered here and there. In a box below the stage there hundreds of little yellow bingo balls, abandoned there when the new computer's were installed.
Looking round the bingo hall it is easy to see how the cinema auditorium was converted a the plasterboard ceiling at the front of the hall ends abruptly against a curved solid beam, obviously the lower lip of the circle balcony behind this traces of the edwardian decorations in plaster board moldings and ceiling roses exist below a gaudy 80's paint scheme. At the back of the cinema some more edwardian elegance survives in the finely turned door handel's in the auditoriums double doors which are surrounded by more decorative plaster moldings. Its threw these doors we exited the Auditorium into the cinemas stalls entrance hall.
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The entry hall hasn't escaped the modernisation wood chip wallpaper decorates the wall but this was mild compaired to the monstrosity awaiting round the corner, descending a small flight of stairs we were now close to the front of the building in the reception of the Bingo Club a nightmare of faux food paneling and a collapsed suspended ceiling. But above this hidden away for the past four decades was a marvelous plaster work dome capped with an edwardian stain glassed skylight, a true hidden gem. A small wooden door off the reception lead out into what would have once been the cinema's entrance lobby it too has been clad in wood paneling it seems a little more appropriate in here, considering its later use as an amusement arcade which aren't renowned for there architectural merit. We were right at the front of the building now the cinema's double glass doors were in front of us not letting any light in now through the heavy boarding but we can clearly hear the sound of passing pedestrians and cars out on High Street it's always quite a surreal feeling in an abandoned building in a busy city center so still quiet inside but with all the noise of modern life just inches away outside.
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From here we back tracked to the auditorium entry hall where a stairwell protected by a gate leads upwards. An iron gate decorated with the suits of playing cards hangs over the foot of the stairs, once converted to a bingo hall the stairs up to the circle wouldn't have been required anymore the gate would have kept the public from wandering upstairs. One landing up we reach a open door marked private stepping beyond we entered the cinema offices the hall here is crowded with abandoned gamblers squeezing past these into what must have been a store room we are greeted by the great gambler grave yard there must have been 10 or so machines packed tightly into the small room, spare reels are scattered all around with tatty bingo prizes. From here on in we find gamblers everywhere there were about fifty abandoned around the rest of the cinema.
On the next level up we came across the door to the circle balcony, it was of the same elegant design as the doors on the lower level but for now we passed it by heading up the final flight of steps to what i hoped would be the projection booth. I wasn't disappointed but as expected we weren't greeted by the sight of dust covered projectors just a pile of dumped cinema seats and old bingo desks. You could just about work out where the projector would have stood even though the windows at the front of the room were hidden behind a mountain of dumped items the pipes to the air vents still hung from the ceiling. In one corner of the projection booth a heavy Iron door lead in to a tiny corridor leading on in to a film store and electrical room it was also filled with dumped cinema seat cushions but lying at the back were two pieces of round metal marked Kalee which looked remarkably like the round film casing found on projectors, I'm no expert in film projectors having only seen those at North Wales Hospital but i think we struck gold. Back in the projection booth i stopped to take a look at the cinema seats and was very pleased to find the Kalee name again this time embossed on the cast iron legs of one of the seats the Elysium was turning up true cinema treasure.
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We then left the projection booth by a small run of stairs which lead into another stairway down to a fire escape. This whole are looked as if it had been abandoned since the 1960's when the cinema was converted. On this side the door into the projection booth was a real relic the painted letters spelling out no smoking were truly from another time and the Gents toilets we found one level down were time capsule its door had a beautiful acid etched porthole window incased in a stained glass circle was clearly installed when the building first opened back in 1914. The stairwell didn't lead any where it was blocked off at the stalls level clearly it served no purpose during the bingo hall days as was blocked off and left. We climbed back upwards and then made out final stop of the trip. Slowly pushing open the doors to the circle balcony i was stunned, Up here sitting un used and forgotten above the suspended ceiling of the Bingo hall all the original cinema seats were still in situ their only patron now was a pigeon which ignored us. After a few minuets marveling at the cinema seats and the heavy plaster ventilator decorations hanging from the ceiling we made our way back down through the cinema and quietly slipped away leaving Elysium behind.