The Playhouse Cinema was originally built c1857 as assembly rooms, with an entrance described as 'like a pepper-pot, between a Turkish minaret and a Chinese pagoda'. It was then remodelled in 1865 by H Maule-ffinch with a new front portico of eight Tuscan columns. In 1880 it was burnt down and then reconstructed with the present simpler facade. The interior was subsequently altered in the early C20 to a cinema, and the gallery was extended in 1914. The present gallery looks of the 1920s, but very little else survives of that interior.

The exterior of the Cinema is painted stucco with corrugated asbestos roofs. It has a facade of 1-3-1 bays, all with tall arched recesses. There are centre plain square headed double doors with an overlight, whilst the outer bays have single doors. The side walls are plain roughcast. Whilst the interior of the cinema is now mostly altered, a gently pitched curved fronted balcony survives with Art Deco type motifs on the front.

It was included for street facade and as the remains of a C19 assembly room.

Source:- Cadw listed buildings, NJR 27/01/2009