Grand Theatre

Located in Croydon, today a southern part of Greater London. The Grand Theatre & Opera House was opened on 6th April 1896 by famed actor/theatre manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, and it was owned and managed by Messrs Batley & Linfoot. It was designed by an architect named Brough. The exterior of the building had a huge dome, on top of which was a large statue of a winged angel with other slightly smaller winged angels on the parapet.

It was possibly the first building in Croydon to screen moving pictures when in October 1896, 6-months after opening, Paul’s Theatrograph appeared on the bill and in August 1897 Bender & Co. showed film of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee using their Velograph machine.

The Grand Theatre & Opera House was mainly a playhouse, and attracted actors such as Sarah Bernhardt(June 1898), Sir Henry Irving(July 1898), Ellen Terry(February 1899). It was a popular and successful theatre and was often used as a tryout for productions prior to their debut in London’s West End theatre district.

By 1913 it was being used as a repertory theatre by the Croydon Repertory Players and had dropped the ‘& Opera House’ from its name, becoming the Grand Theatre. The theatre was closed soon after the outbreak of World War II in 1939 and remained closed until September 1942. It was not a successful time for the theatre, despite popular entertainments such as pantomime being presented. It was closed in May 1958 and reopened in November 1958, but this was a last gasp, as the lease was about to expire in 1959, and developers were already planning to demolish and build offices on the site. 10,000 people signed a petition to save the Grand Theatre, to no avail. The Grand Theatre closed on 18th April 1959 with the play “No Chance for Davies”.

It was demolished in Autumn of 1959 and a 10-storey office building named Grosvenor House was built on the site.

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