Inside Gaumont Cinemas: The Demolitions That Destroyed Britain's Art Deco Palaces

In 1937, the Gaumont State Cinema opened on Kilburn High Road. Four thousand seats. A BBC broadcast on opening night. Queen Mary's favourite cinema. It was the crown of a circuit that controlled 343 Art Deco palaces across Britain. Then television arrived. Audiences vanished. The Rank Organisation stripped the name off every building. Palaces became bingo halls, bowling alleys, and nightclubs. The bulldozers came next. Today, almost nothing marks where they stood. This is the story of how Britain built its greatest cinema circuit and then demolished nearly every piece of it.