When the writer was a child in the 1950s and 1960s he occasionally walked along St Nicholas Street Street and was fascinated by a rather down-at-heel but still impressive entrance way into the Theatre Royal. He wondered what were its origins?
The Theatre Royal opened in 1863 and was known as the New Concert Hall or New Music Hall. It had begun life as a Congregational Chapel nearly sixty years previously and was bought by Captain Cosens when the congregation moved to the new Gloucester Street Congregational Church in 1863.
It reopened as the Theatre Royal and Concert Hall and was then sold to Joseph Drew in 1875. It was remodelled in 1884 and in 1893 was sold back to Cosens who used it as a foundry. In 1924 Cosens used it as a food store, and 40 years later with the rise in the use of commercial and domestic refrigeration it went out of use. It was bought by Weymouth Council in 1968 for use as car park and demolished although the entrance arch remained until 1985, looking distinctly out of place and rather pointless.
The site is now occupied by apartments.
