The Music Hall and Theatre History Website

Homepage - Site index - Contact me

____________________________________________________________________________________________

This is the most important surviving early music hall to be seen anywhere and (although altered) is now the only representative of the ‘new generation’ giant pub halls of 1850s London, modelled on the success of the second Canterbury Hall (1854), Evans New (supper rooms) Music Hall (1856) and Weston’s (1857), all long demolished. It is of outstanding architectural and archaeological significance.

Right - A Wilton's Bill featuring Arthur Lloyd and his future wife, Kattie King.

The Prince of Denmark Tavern was reputedly the first in London to have mahogany counters and fittings, hence its alternative name, which stuck to it for well over a century, of Old Mahogany Bar. A concert room existed before 1843, as a purpose built room behind the pub, at right angles to the axis of the present hall. Matthew Eltham obtained a license for it as the Albion Saloon in 1845, but it soon reverted to proto-music hall form. John Wilton rebuilt it as his first music hall in 1853. He then acquired adjoining properties (the pub front still exhibits the original party lines and varying levels) in order to obtain the rear land, over which he built a vastly enlarged grand music hall, opening in 1859 (inscribed foundation stone still present between pub and hall). The hall was very

seriously damaged by fire in 1877. Engravings of the first hall show that the rebuilding was on closely similar lines to the original building, but with a proscenium stage in place of the former apsidal platform and a gently raked floor instead of the flat supper-room floor.

Right - Wilton's Music Hall 2004 M.L.

Typical of its kind and period, the hall was originally completely landlocked by the surrounding property and it therefore had no external elevations apart from that of its parent pub, through which it must still be entered. The face brickwork, where it is visible, shows signs of hurried execution and the staircase in the entrance lobby, (to take one obvious element) is of extraordinary makeshift construction. The hall, nevertheless, fully merits the contemporary epithet, ‘handsome'.

Entered through the paved lobby, it is an astonishing survival. A big, rectangular room with an apse at the back and a high stage. Single balcony on three sides with bombe carton pierre front, supported on unusual helical-twist (‘barley sugar’) cast-iron columns, whose bases are progressively overtaken by the rake of the floor.

Wilton’s became a mission hall in 1888 and spent a longer life in this form than it had as a music hall. By 1963 it was a rag-sorting depot and warehouse.

Left and Right - Details of surviving plasterwork beside the main entrance of Wilton's in 2004. M.L.

It was acquired by the Greater London Council in 1966 and subsequently transferred to a trust.

Broomhill Opera have a long lease and the building was returned to active theatre life in 1999.

In its post-fire 1878 state, it still exhibits the essential attributes of a first generation classic grand music hall, with space for supper tables, benched area and encircling promenade. A bar previously opened from the pub into the hall at stage left. An unelaborate but profoundly evocative room.

The above text is reproduced with kind permission of The Theatres Trust from their indispensable book - 'The Theatres Trust Guide to British Theatres 1750-1950' John Earl & Michael Sell. Available from the publishers, A&C Black (tel 01480 212666).