Ritz Cinema, St Mark’s Hill, Surbiton 1992

Located at 7 St Mark’s Hill in Surbiton, the building now known as The Coronation Hall pub has undergone a fascinating transformation over more than a century. Originally constructed as a lecture hall, it later became a cinema, bingo hall, health club, and now a Wetherspoon pub. Each chapter of its history reflects broader shifts in popular entertainment and community life in suburban London.

From Coronation Hall to the Silver Screen

The building opened on 21 June 1911 – the eve of King George V’s coronation – as Coronation Hall, a community lecture theatre with seating for nearly 900. It served as a cultural venue, offering talks, live entertainment, and a tea room. By 1919, responding to the rising popularity of moving pictures, it had evolved into the Coronation Cinema.

Cinema remained its focus for the next several decades. In 1947, it was renamed the Roxy Cinema, before adopting the name Ritz Cinema in 1955 – a rebrand in line with post-war glamour and the golden age of filmgoing. The Ritz featured a large single auditorium and offered a relatively affordable night out: tickets cost sixpence for downstairs seats and ninepence for the balcony.

The Final Curtain for the Ritz

The Ritz showed its final films – I’d Rather Be Rich and Operation Petticoat – on 17 May 1966, marking the end of its cinematic era. But the building’s story didn’t stop there. Like many former cinemas across Britain, it adapted to changing tastes by reopening as a bingo hall, which operated for the next 27 years. The vast interior, once echoing with the sounds of film reels and laughter, now hosted the click of bingo pens and the shouts of winning numbers.

Perhaps the most unusual chapter came in the early 1990s, when the venue briefly became a naturist health club. This curious venture was short-lived, ending in 1996.

A New Life as The Coronation Hall Pub

In 1997, the building found new purpose as a J.D. Wetherspoon pub, which it remains today under its original 1911 name: The Coronation Hall. It is one of many historic cinemas across the UK that Wetherspoon has sympathetically repurposed into pubs, preserving architectural features while adding modern hospitality.