engineering

Towers Cinema

Towers Cinema is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Towers Cinema rather than just read about it. In short: Towers Cinema was a former cinema in Hornchurch, England. It was built in 1935 on part of the former Grey Towers estate and was noted for its Art Deco style of architecture.

Key takeaways

Towers Cinema belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Towers Cinema to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Towers Cinema from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Towers Cinema was a former cinema in Hornchurch, England. It was built in 1935 on part of the former Grey Towers estate and was noted for its Art Deco style of architecture. From 1973 it was used as a bingo hall until it closed in 2015. Despite the efforts of a local campaign to preserve the structure and to have it listed by Historic England, the building was demolished to make way for a Lidl supermarket.

History The Towers Cinema was built on part of the former Grey Towers estate, a stately home which was demolished in 1931. During World War I, the estate had been requisitioned by the Army Council for use as a military hospital and army camp. A new cinema, named The Towers after the old mansion house, was built on the southern boundary of the Grey Towers estate, at the west end of Hornchurch High Street. The cinema was commissioned by David J. James, a brewing industrialist turned cinema impresario, for his D.J. James Cinema Circuit. It was designed by Leslie Hagger Kemp (1899–1997) and Frederick Edward Tasker, of the Kemp & Tasker partnership, which designed new and renovated existing cinemas for James' independent chain. Opening its doors on 3 August 1935, it provided facilities including an auditorium to seat 1799 patrons; a shallow stage with dressing rooms; a café-ballroom on the first floor that could seat 200; a cosmetics saloon for use by ladies; and an ample car park. The ornate interior of the cinema, including the auditorium, was designed by the firm Clark & Fenn. The opening programme was a double-bill screening of The Phantom Light starring Binnie Hale and Vagabond Lady starring Robert Young. In March 1937 James sold his chain of cinemas for a considerable sum to Eastern Cinemas (GCF) Ltd which were then taken over by the Odeon chain in 1943. The characteristic neon ODEON signage was then applied covering the word Towers (which is cut into the fabric of the building but later restored in 2010). The cinema closed on 6 October 1973, with a screening of the James Bond film Live and Let Die as the final show. The building was converted into a Top Rank bingo hall (later Mecca Bingo) later in 1973, and it remained in use as a bingo hall until the facility closed in 2015.

Architecture When the cinema was converted into a bingo hall, many alterations to the foyer and lower auditorium were made. The café-ballroom was divided into smaller offices by the installation of dividing walls and a false ceiling which covered a highly ornate coffered ceiling. Many other original features still remained, including the wall and ceiling decoration and the private boxes in the main auditorium. The architects' firm Kemp & Tasker designed a number of Art Deco cinemas in the south of England, among them the Odeon Cinemas in Romford and Stepney. Their Odeon Cinema building in St Albans, Hertfordshire was restored and re-opened in 2015. Leslie Hagger Kemp designed the former Union Cinema in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, built in 1936–37 which has achieved Grade II listed status; he was associated with the Regal in Camberwell built in 1938–39 also listed at Grade II. Apart from cinemas, Kemp and Tasker won the Daily Mail 'Ideal House' competition in 1934 (at the same time they were working on The Towers Building).

Preservation campaign The building was sold in 2015 to the retail chain Lidl and was to be demolished to be replaced by a supermarket. Following a campaign to save the building, Havering London Borough Council temporarily protected it in 2015 so Historic England could assess its heritage value. Demolition was opposed by the heritage charity, the Twentieth Century Society. An approach was made by the Everyman Cinemas chain to purchase the building, but submitted their offer too late. In August 2016, Havering Council approved the scheme to demolish the Towers Cinema, and Lidl announced a plan to retain the “Towers” concrete lettering and to create a public art installation at street level.

Demolition The former Towers Cinema building was demolished in April 2017 to permit construction of a new supermarket on the site. The Hornchurch branch of Lidl opened for trade on 15 March 2018.

See also Grade I and II* listed buildings in Havering The Rex, Berkhamsted George Cinema, Portobello

References

External links "The history of the Mecca Towers Building". HornchurchLife. 26 September 2015. Archived from the original on 9 September 2016. Retrieved 13 October 2016.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Towers Cinema

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Towers Cinema claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Towers Cinema before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Towers Cinema ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Towers Cinema

In research: Towers Cinema appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Towers Cinema in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Towers Cinema is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1935 establishments in England, 2017 disestablishments in England, Art Deco architecture in London, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Towers Cinema outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Towers Cinema in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Towers Cinema means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Towers Cinema out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Towers Cinema in simple terms?

Towers Cinema was a former cinema in Hornchurch, England. It was built in 1935 on part of the former Grey Towers estate and was noted for its Art Deco style of architecture.

Why does Towers Cinema matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Towers Cinema?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Towers Cinema.