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Formerly known as the New Princes Theatre it stood at a prominent corner site at nos 51-55 East India Dock road. Designed in an English baroque style, it was built between 1904-1905. The interior decorations were in the French Renaissance style. It's owner was a Clarence Sounes who also owned Theatres at Woolwich and Aldershot. It was claimed at it's opening that the theatre could hold up to 2,500 persons - but this is doubtful. As early as 1907 the Princes (it was called the Hippodrome by 1908) was showing three-hour programmes of animated pictures. Mixed bills of live performances and film then continued for the next two decades. By 1925 the Hippodrome was run solely as a cinema. In July of 1926, after some alterations by Pitcher Construction Company, it was announced that it would be 'opening' as 'the New Hippodrome Super Cinema'. It was altered again in 1936, but was bombed in 1940 and afterwards described as 'burnt out' and 'unusable'. It never opened again. The ruins remained and were eventually cleared away in 1950. |
