St Leonards used to have the Warrior Square Concert Hall, later the Royal Concert Hall. Its location was on a block that is now entirely occupied by an apartment building, with Terrace Road to its south and Warrior Gardens to its north.
The Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 18 October 1879, describes in detail the opening ceremonies. The architects were Vernon and Hill. The builders were Messrs. Cruttenden of St Leonards, and it cost £13000 to £14000 to build. Its stage was 55ft by 22ft 6 in, and it could hold 1500 persons.
Below is an image of it from the online version of “Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea as a health and pleasure resort, with statistics and local information”, published by The Hastings and St Leonards Publicity Association, 1881.
It is mentioned in W.T. Pike’s ‘Historical and Descriptive Guide to Hastings and St Leonards‘ (also online), undated but after 1882, page 33:
The Warrior Square Concert Hall… is engaged for high-class concerts and public meetings. Dr Abram, organist of St Paul’s, was formerly the lessee; but Mr John Stuart, of King’s Road, St Leonards, has taken Dr Abram’s place, and is entering with spirit into his work of catering for the public entertainment.
The Warrior Square Concert Rooms Company had been incorporated in 1877. The Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 12 May 1877, gives details of a meeting to discuss it at Cecil House, Dr Abram’s house. £15000 was to be raised, in £20 shares. It would take the place of an open air (roller) skating rink. Subject to approval the architects were to be Messrs. Hill and Fowler; Mr F.G. Phillips, the solicitor; and Mr W.J. Gant, the Secretary.
In the 1871 census John Abram was at 1 Edward Road. He was 30, ‘professor of music, Mus. Bac. Oxon.’ Both he and his wife Ann were born at Margate. He had moved by the 1881 census to Cecil House, the name given to 37 Church Road. He had the same occupation while his nephew Isaac Kennard, 20, was managing clerk of concert rooms, while another nephew, Edward Kennard, 19, was also a professor of music.
John Stuart is implied to be the new lessee in the Hastings and St Leonards Times, 6 May 1882, when there is discussion of a series of ‘orchestral concerts’ by Julian Adams, a concept which had languished under Abram’s reign. The 1881 census has, at 32 Gensing Station Road (later renamed Kings Road), John Stuart, age 74, bookseller and stationer, born Preston, Lancashire. The Hastings Observer, 5 November 1887, mentions a benefit concert for Stuart, who was about to go to the United States on a six-month lecture tour. It sounds unlikely at his age but he is stated to be the lessee.
The new name, the Royal Concert Hall, appears without comment in an advert in the Hastings Observer, 1 July 1882. There are numerous adverts over the years which indicated that public lectures made up much of the hall’s activities,
So where exactly was the hall ? The image below is from an Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1897 and published in 1899. Just out of view, at the top left, are the Railway and Royal public houses on either side of Western Road, with Warrior Square station beyond both.
The building was used in World War I by the Women’s Auxiliary Corps as a mess hall. It closed in 1918. The Historical Hastings website has a detailed article, with more illustrations, on the Elite Cinema, which took over the building, opening on the 14 March 1921 as the Elite Picture Theatre. The alterations needed were the subject of planning applications DH/C/6/1/8695, DH/C/6/1/8740 and DH/C/6/1/8766 (all at The Keep, at Falmer) in March to October 1920. I have not seen them, but they presumably consist of two rejected and then the final approved application.
The same Historical Hastings page says that the building was damaged by a German air raid on the 26 September 1940, in which the Presbyterian church shown on the map was destroyed (the block it was on is now entirely occupied by a strange structure owned by Southern Water).
The cinema reopened in 1942, though the building was partly used as a store by the Admiralty. The Hastings Observer rarely discussed bomb damage but its 28 March 1942 issue, in an article titled ‘Elite Reopening: Another cinema for St Leonards’, says:
The slight damage to this popular cinema has been repaired, and as the auditorium was unharmed, only thorough cleaning was found to be necessary. Cleaners, decorators and repairers are busily engaged, and when the hall is opened the patrons will be delighted with the surroundings.
Sadly, another raid in October 1942 half destroyed the building. It was repaired and was to open again on the 23 June 1947 as the Elite Super Cinema. On that day, a huge fire badly damaged the building, watched by a crowd of 15,000. The Hastings Observer, 28 June 1947 issue has a long account with two photographs.
What was left remained on the site until it was demolished in 1986 to make way for the present apartment building for the elderly. It is called Royal Terrace, which was apparently the name for the row of houses to the south of the hall which were still there at the time of the 1947 fire.
There are applications on the Hastings planning applications website for Royal Terrace. The key application is HS/FA/79/00632, from 1979, for ‘Land known as Elite Cinema and houses in Royal Terrace, Warrior Square, St Leonards-on-Sea’, implying that the houses on the south side of the block had to be demolished. It was for ’86 flats and 6 maisonettes for 233 persons and concealed parking for 77 cars’. The applicant was Hastings Borough Council itself.