The Planet Reigate Podcast
69a: *Extra Episode - The (Full) Story Of Bancroft Road, Reigate
Fri, 03 Jan 2025
The Story Of Bancroft Road ReigateHow many times have you driven into Reigate either from Redhill, or from down the Hill, and found yourself in the town’s one-way system, taking that awkward sharp left-hand turn off Church Street, past the town’s only multi-storey car park on the right-hand side, the library tucked away at the dog-leg bend, the Everyman cinema on the right and up to Bell Street..?Have you ever looked at the building on the left-hand side, Pool House, and wondered how it got its name?Maybe you knew that it was built on the site of the town’s swimming pool, that opposite it, the cinema sits on the site of another cinema, so grand it was called The Majestic, and that that building was almost side-to-side with the town’s first cinema, The Hippodrome.This special episode of The Planet Reigate Podcast brings together features from Christmas and New Year shows of 2024 and 2025, all in one place. Together, hear the story of Reigate’s Bancroft Road.The love story at the heart of the development of both the Majestic Pool and Majestic Cinema.The rise and fall of both businesses and the people behind themHow the road they were on got its name – and it’s not named after who you might think.We discover the grave of the couple who made both ventures possible, and how their love endured, and go behind the scenes or rather underground, into what is left of the pool today.The episode is made possible by the research of Sean Hawkins and by kind permission of Spencer Copping of WS Planning and Architecture, which is based in Pool House.I invite you to listen to The Story Of Bancroft Road Reigate… on The Planet Reigate Podcast. If you get value from The Planet Reigate Podcast, please give us value back in return; click here to support us with a small donation: www.buymeacoffee.com/theplanetreigatepodcast or share us with your colleagues. A list of ‘the best of the guests’, and a link to hear each one, is on this Facebook post: https://tinyurl.com/prpbest*CREDITS:The seven-note Planet Reigate Theme is ©Peter StewartOther music www.Pond5.com:TITANIC - Paradise Waltz Classical Instrumental End - by TitanicRemembered ID 123249849CLASSIC - light orch Victorian - by EaRenTech ID 130569703DARK CLASSICAL - by tralfamadore, from Pond5 ID 108528090MEDIUM - bed - by SergeyWednesday ID 73515488 INSPIRED - Piano 60sec Inspirational Romantic Background by Viminod ID 069490173INSPIRATIONAL - Exciting Epic - by SputnikMoment ID 109466766DARK - simple ambient - by RayMusicProductions ID 088913604TITANIC - Paradise Waltz Classical Instrumental End - by TitanicRemembered ID 123249849 - 12 secondsGUITAR - Frogard Item ID: 114324148 Facebook: www.Facebook.com/ThePlanetReigatePodcastEmail: [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This is the Planet Reigate podcast.
And welcome to a very special edition of our show. How many times have you driven into Reigate, either from Red Hill or from down the hill, and found yourself in the town's one-way system? Or indeed, taking that route as a pedestrian?
And that awkward sharp left-hand turn off Church Street, past the town's only multi-storey car park on the right-hand side, the library tucked away in that dog-leg bend, the Everyman Cinema on the right, and going up to Bell Street. Have you ever looked at the building on the left-hand side, Hall House, and wondered how it got its name?
Maybe you knew that it was built on the site of the town's swimming pool, that opposite the cinema sits on the site of another cinema, so grand it was called the Majestic, and that that building was almost side-to-side with the town's first cinema, the Hippodrome.
Well, this special episode of the Planet Reigate podcast brings together features from Christmas and New Year shows of 2024 and 2025, all in one place. Together, hear the story of Reigate's Bancroft Road. The love story at the heart of the development of both the majestic pool and the majestic cinema. The rise and fall of both businesses and the people behind them.
and how the road they're on got its name, and it's not named after who you might think. We discover the grave of the couple who made both ventures possible, and how their love endured, and go behind the scenes, or rather underground, into what is left of the pool today.
This episode is made possible by the research of Sean Hawkins and by kind permission of Spencer Copping of WS Planning and Architecture, which is based in Poole House. So, I invite you to listen to The Story of Bancroft Road Rygate on the Planet Rygate podcast.
This is the Planet Rygate podcast with Peter Stewart.
It's a breezy afternoon, as you might be able to hear on the microphone, and I'm probably at one of the highest points in Reigate Town Centre. Where am I? I'm at the top of the town's only multi-storey car park. Why? Well... I want to tell you about Harry and Emmy Bancroft and the story of Reigate's open-air swimming pool and the story of one of Reigate's cinemas as well. They're all intertwined.
And why have I come up here? Well, because I'm now looking over Bancroft Road. And Bancroft Road wasn't always here. I mean, no, local roads were always here, of course, but Bancroft is a relatively new addition to Reigate, coming long after Bell Street and the High Street and Church Street, which it turns off from.
And it owes itself and its name to Harry Bancroft and his wife, Emmy, a one-time couple. Music Hall Double Act, who fell in love and became local entrepreneurs, creating not only the road, but also an outdoor swimming pool and a cinema as well. Yeah, Bancroft Road used to have the majestic Lido. It's where Paul House is now, opposite the cinema. And the cinema is where the cinema used to be.
The majestic Lido. The Majestic Lido and the Majestic Cinema. Together, owned, run, operated by the Bancroft couple. Hear their story over the next few weeks on the Planet Reigate podcast. Now, Bancroft Road is not actually really named after someone called Harry Bancroft, because Harry Bancroft didn't actually exist. At least, that wasn't his original name.
He was actually born Henry Abraham in around 1873 into a Jewish family living in Whitechapel. Harry had a quick wit and a good voice, and from the age of 15 in the late 1880s, he trod the stage of many a London and suburban music hall as an entertainer in a double act with his sister Fanny, who actually used the name Rosa on the stage, and they called themselves the Bancrofts.
OK, so why did they actually change their name? Well, despite never actually using Abraham on the stage, Harry and his siblings didn't legally become Bancroft until the mid-1930s, with the rise of fascism across Europe. Yeah, think about it. Abraham, 1930s, you know what was just around the corner. Anyway, back to our story. Now, Fanny married in 1902, and so she retired as his partner.
And for a while, our hero Harry worked as a solo comic, actor, singer, until teaming up with an already successful music hall artiste and pantomime performer, glorious and glamorous Emmy Ames. who he actually went on to marry. Now, until World War I, they travelled the length and breadth of Britain very successfully with their double act, but they were getting increasingly worried.
Music halls were dying out because of the rise in popularity of the cinema, and they could see their income drying up, unless they, as we might say today, diversified or pivoted. Now, Reigate had a cinema, the Hippodrome in Bell Street, which had been opened in 1911. Originally, it was called the Palace Picture Drome. And in 1916, Harry and Emmy came to Reigate, saw it, and took it over.
And at the Priory sale in 1922, we've spoken about this before on the podcast, it was a time when an awful lot of land and buildings, which had been owned by Lady Summers, including Priory Park and Priory House, that whole private estate, and many other buildings around the town, they were sold off, as I say, in 1922, and Harry and Emmy got the freehold of the Palace Picture Drome, for £1,500.
That's about £7,000 in today's money. The cinema on the site of, well, where Wagamama's is today, had seating for 750 people and the hall had a sloping floor. and enough room to house an entire orchestra. So what more do we know about Emmy? Well, she seems to have been an extraordinary woman.
The looks and talents to be on stage, and the business brain behind the development of this part of Reigate. Emmy Ames, as was, had been a singer and actor who established quite a name for herself in both the music halls and in pantomime, excelling in what were then known as trouser roles, which allowed glamorous women to show off their legs. Rather scandalous at the time.
And it was while touring that Emmy met Harry, and they formed a partnership on stage, in business, and in life as well. Now, the cinema business was not quite the end of Emmy's career as an entertainer on stage. The Hippodrome on Bell Street, like most cinemas before the talkies arrived, frequently alternated the programme of mostly short, silent films with live comic or musical acts –
And several times a week, Emmy took her place on the small stage in front of the screen and did her bit, serenading the audience with selections from her repertoire of romantic, sentimental and humorous songs, and until the end of the war in 1918, always finished with patriotic songs with rousing choruses in which everyone could join in.
The Bancrofts, Harry and Emmy, did their real best to improve the Hippodrome. They introduced more comfortable seating and also, get this, a roof that could be raised to ventilate the auditorium.
As much a necessity in those pre-bathroom days when the only full wash was taken by most people once a week in a galvanised bath in front of the fire at home as it was to clear the smoky fog produced by the patrons' numerous pipes and cigarettes. So, Emmy was the manager of the Hippodrome and renamed it the Premier Picture Theatre of Surrey. It's a great name, isn't it?
And her husband, Harry, acquired or built several other cinemas, but all the way over in Cambridgeshire and the East Midlands. Anyway, by the 1920s, he'd left much of the day-to-day management of the Reigate Hippodrome, or I should say the premier picture theatre of Surrey in the hands of his wife.
By the mid-thirties, though, it was a little bit dated, and as well as competing with several existing picture houses in Red Hill, there was the strong rumour that the Odeon Company had plans to build a large Art Deco cinema there as well. they were about to face some stiff competition.
But Emmy had a brainwave, and you can hear more about that in our next episode, as the story of Harry and Emmy continues on the Planet Reigate podcast.
The Planet Reigate podcast. Great stories from Reigate.
I'm here on top of the Bancroft Road car park looking down at Bancroft Road. And last week we heard all about the Music Hall double act, Harry and Emmy Bancroft, who fell in love and married and settled in Reigate after World War I. And as theatres were replaced by cinemas, they wanted to get in on the act, so to speak.
Emmy running the Hippodrome on Bell Street on the site of Wagamama's restaurant today. with Harry running a chain of cinemas in East Anglia. At the end of the last episode, Emmy had just heard of a new cinema that was due to open in Redhill, and she was worried again about their livelihood. And so she and Harry hatched a plan. If you can't beat them, join them, and then go on better.
And this week, the story continues of Harry and Emmy Bancroft of Bancroft Road fame. Emmy Bancroft was clearly an astute businesswoman, rightly concerned by the potentially damaging competition of a new Art Deco picture house opening in the other half of the borough, in Redhill, and diverting trade from her in Reigate.
She had an idea, and she got her husband Harry to look both at some back land behind the Hippodrome that had formed the gardens belonging to the recently demolished White Hart Hotel in Bell Street, and two shops located immediately to the south of the Hippodrome that were due to become empty in 1934.
After lengthy discussions with the local and county council, an outline planning agreement was granted to Harry Bancroft to allow him to demolish the shops in Bell Street and build a cinema with his own cafe along with a swimming pool and put in a brand new approach road from Church Street and Bell Street on this dog-leg site. Music Work moved along apace.
It was agreed that the council would buy a portion of the White Hart Garden, not needed for the cinema development, which could be used as a public car park. It's the site today of the multi-storey. The cinema and swimming pool cost over £60,000 to build. That's over £3 million today, and that's without the cost of the land. We don't know how much that cost at the time.
Too much, of course, for the Bancrofts alone to fund. They went into partnership with a company that ran a large circuit of cinemas, Shipman and King, to cover the development costs, a partnership that survived for the next 30-odd years. And the pool opened on the 10th of August 1935, more than two months before the majestic cinema's doors opened on the 14th of October.
The advertisements for the event indicated the incompleteness of the development at that time, quote, "...the pool will be open before the new road is finished, so we trust our patrons will overlook this pending completion." So picture the scene, the open-air pool, on the site of which is now, appropriately, Pool House, just near the library.
The Majestic Cinema was opposite, and the Hippodrome Cinema was just around the corner in Bell Street. Taken together, you could say they provided Reigate with its first and only leisure centre. The ceremony at the oval-shaped pool on that sunny afternoon nearly 90 years ago was well attended.
The audience was entertained in the opening programme by Olive Bartle, winner of a bronze swimming medal in the British Empire Games at Wembley in 1934, and fellow members of the Kingston Ladies Swimming Club, who entered the pool in Victorian-style costumes.
Rather unusually, this display was followed by a lecture on the history of swimming, given by a Mr Percy Eames from Kingston, delivered from within the water of the pool... He demonstrated the development of strokes and style and entertained onlookers with a verse of a popular song performed underwater with the novelty of an iron bucket on his head.
Refreshments for spectators were provided at the poolside. After the war, prices rose to one shilling and sixpence, or seven and a half p for bathers, and nine pence, or four p in modern money, for non-bathers and without any allowance made for children. Light refreshments were available all day from the pool cafe, or you could save yourself up for the full afternoon tea.
from 3 o'clock in the afternoon, served poolside. Opening times originally advertised as daily from 7.30 in the morning through till midnight, but they were later modified to a 10am start through until dusk. A year later, in 1936, the pool opened at the end of May, and swimmers could luxuriate for the first time in heated water.
Apart from a report in the Surrey Mirror, recording that on Sunday 13th June 1937, the Reigate Town Silver Prize Band played on the lawns of the majestic swimming pool, which may have been a belated celebration of the coronation in May, there's very little more information on the pre-war pool or its operation.
It seems that the Majestic Swimming Pool closed at the beginning of the Second World War and didn't open again until peacetime, maybe as late as 1947. Next week, the story continues on the Planet Reigate podcast as the Majestic Swimming Pool is joined by the opening of the sumptuous and luxurious Majestic Cinema over the road.
This is the Planet Reigate podcast with Peter Stewart.
Last week we heard about how one-time Music Hall double act Harry and Emmy Bancroft, who had been running the Hippodrome Cinema on Bell Street in Reigate, felt so threatened by a potential new cinema in Red Hill, they decided to build a new road and on it site an open-air pool and a brand new picture house.
I described the Lido, where it was, the opening day and the cost, and this week, the rise of Reigate's brand new cinema, and the subsequent decline of it, and the pool, and the lasting legacy of Harry and Emmy Bancroft. Reigate's majestic cinema opened on the 14th of October 1935 to the strains of the new three-manual Christy Wonder Organ, played by Reginald New.
MUSIC
A certain Captain Campbell, perhaps you'll recognise him, is at Pendine Sands in South Wales preparing for an attack on the land speed record. He is accompanied by Lady Campbell, whose support and sympathy must be counted among the natural advantages with which he has been blessed.
After a few words from the mayor, they settled into their seats and watched an American crime movie and also a rollicking comedy featuring Ralph Lynn and Tom Walls, who lived just up the road in Epsom. Now, I'm not sure exactly what film it was, but Stormy Weather was released in 1935, starring Tom Walls, Ralph Lynn and Yvonne Arnault. The theatre in Guildford is named after her.
Have you been seeing my wife? Yes, thank you very much. She was most obliging. Why was this door locked on the outside? The other fellow must have done it. What other fellow? He's gone up to her room. What? Up to her bedroom? Oh, it's quite all right. He's a very old friend of hers. What the blazes is all this about? I think he's still up there. Shall I go and look? No, you keep out of it.
Besides, how do you know where her bedroom is? You've got a lot of stuff about me from Bullock. And it was all very... You know, that word. I don't think you've treated me very fairly. I'll treat you to something in a minute. She's gone. Where? How the blazes do I know? Ah, that's why he locked that door. He knew she was going out with me, so he... Oh. Oh, she was going out with you, was she?
Well, just a little. Oh. Yes, she'd go out with anybody. Yes, I think she would. What? No.
After the show, the invited audience had only a short distance to walk back to their limousines, parked in the large, free, public car park, as it was always advertised in the Hippodrome, a majestic publicity, until after the war. That car park? On the site of today's multi-story.
The Majestic was an Art Deco cinema, though not quite so impressive outside as inside, where a generous budget had allowed for deep red pile carpets and upholstery, with plenty of swooping chrome and brass railings, snazzy lighting, and that organ that was raised and played before the show and in the intervals, and then discreetly lowered out of sight when the films were projected.
It only had one big screen, but seating for an audience of 2,000. Now compare that with today's Everyman with two small screens and seating for barely a tenth of that number. Even the old Hippodrome could pack in up to 750 picture goers. And it had a stylish 30s upstairs cafe that ran until the 1970s.
Now let's cross back over the road to the pool, and in March 1948, the swimming pool lease was owned by Fred Cadman, and he was sued by a bletchingly firm for the balance of around £100 for landscaping gardening work, carried out there in 1947, which might suggest refurbishments made before the first post-war reopening.
Fred Cadman was a Yorkshireman, and with his Scottish wife Nina, as well as managing the pool, they owned and managed several local cafes. The Silver Birch Tea Rooms in Station Road, Redhill, the Baytree Cafe on Reigate's High Street, and the Reigate Appetizer Cafe and Pie Shop in Bell Street. In June 1950, an ad appeared in the Surrey Mirror, and it said, ''Lease for sale.
Open-air swimming pool, Bancroft Road, Reigate. A splendid business, easily run by two or three persons. Catering licence, tobacco licence, and good ice cream trade. Spacious lawns for sunbathing, etc. Reason for sale, other business commitments.'' Full particulars may be obtained from F. Cadman, 19 Bell Street, Reigate.
Later, in December 1950, the Reigate Appetizer Café's lease was offered for sale with the reason this time given as, Owners, Fred and Nina Cadman, going abroad. Now, unfortunately, the swimming pool sank. They failed to find someone to take over the lease after the summer of 1949, and the site was subsequently redeveloped. In the 1950s, the appropriately named Paul House was built there.
It's still there today. Although the footings can't have been built exactly over the oval swimming pool because that was on a diagonal northeast-southwest axis. unlike Paul House, which is parallel to the road and extends east to west. The Hippodrome Cinema over the road limped on gamely, became known as the Flea Pit until 1969. MUSIC PLAYS
Harry and Emmy's baby, the Majestic Cinema, battled on, though not very successfully, against the growing competition of television, its later years largely subsidised by pop concerts. There was sadness but little surprise when the doors of the Majestic finally closed in December 1982. The site was later redeveloped as the Everyman Cinema.
And remember Harry and Emmy Bancroft, who had the original dream of the cinema in the pool? Well, Emmy became very ill, died in March 1934, before either building was opened. Although she did live to see the project pass to the foundations being laid. and the signing of a partnership agreement with the Shipman and King Company, who had a large interest in cinemas across the south of England.
Harry mourned his wife for the rest of his life, and he pressed for the new road from Church Street and Bell Street, which he gave to the borough to be named after her. Emmy Bancroft Road is what he wanted. but at the council's insistence, settled in the end on just Bancroft Road.
Harry obviously loved her dearly and paid for the sacred heart altar and the organ in the Church of the Holy Family in York Road in her memory when it was built at the end of the 1930s, and arranged for an in-memoriam notice to appear in the Surrey Mirror every year on the anniversary of her death.
Harry spent most of his later life in Cambridgeshire, but kept his eye firmly on his business interests in Reigate, and he kept a small flat near the Hippodrome for his visits to Reigate up until his death in 1967 at the age of around 94. They lie together here somewhere in Reigate Cemetery, and I'm trying to find them now. I've only got a few clues. and genuinely, I don't know where I'm looking.
I know that it's supposed to be a large and significant memorial, and I know that it's got a large angel on the top. I'm just going over to one now. I always feel awkward about walking on graves, don't you? And it's a little tricky here not to, because... You can't necessarily see where they all are, but here's a big grave with a surround around it. And it's got a large angel on the top.
And I'm just walking around to see if I can see some names. No. Mary May Sturt. So it's not that. I'm just looking around. I can't see anything else obvious. I'm over at the far side. I'm told that it's quite a significant gravestone with an angel on the top and some steps around it. And over to my right-hand side, I can see some which may fit the bill. I can see three with angels on.
So let's see. if these are any of them, in loving memory of Samuel James Ramsey, so it's not that one. I found it. I found it. It's not actually that significant, but I found it. In sacred and everlasting memory of Emmie. It's difficult to read. And Henry Bancroft. It's really difficult to read the inscription on here. There's four or five lines of text.
I can see that it's there, but it's really difficult to read the actual citation. But I can certainly read Emmy and Henry Bancroft. And it's quite moving after reading and telling you the story about this significant local couple who did so much so so much for the town and to be here now and I can kind of pay tribute to them
I wonder what they would have thought today after setting up the outdoor Lido of what we have today in the likes of Donnings and also setting up the cinema there, the majestic on Bancroft Road. And I could stand here and watch a film in the middle of a churchyard, live or pre-recorded, beaming in from anywhere in the world on a handheld device, immediately call up any film at all.
And that's quite incredible, isn't it? 1934, less than 100 years ago. Quite some people setting all that up. Emmy and Henry Bancroft lying together in Reigate Cemetery. The local entertainment entrepreneurs, Harry and Emmy, they developed the town's first and only leisure centre. And you may recall their story the next time you travel down Bancroft Road.
From Reigate and Red Hill, Buckland, Betchworth and Brockham, great stories from places you love and people you know. This is the Planet Reigate podcast.
I'm just driving into the Bancroft Road multi-storey car park, which strikes me as an appropriate place to park. Because this, as you would have heard from previous podcasts, is the place that became possible when the Bancrofts decided that they would buy some land...
round the back of the Hippodrome cinema that they were running at the time, the one on Bell Street where Wagamama's is at the moment, so that they could create their own cinema called the Majestic. on a newly formed road which came to be known as Bancroft Road.
And as part of the deal, the council bought this plot of land, which became a car park, both for the Majestic and also for the swimming pool as well. And it's on this site, where it was originally just a waste piece of ground for a car park, back in the 1930s, that is now... the multi-storey car park on Bancroft Road. And why am I here?
Well, I've been given a very special, almost unique invitation to go and see underneath Pool House on Bancroft Road. Why is Pool House called Pool House? Because it's built on the site of the old swimming pool, the outdoor swimming pool. Some say Lido. And it's very unusual to be able to go and see the footings, the foundations, what is underneath there, and the origins of...
the swimming pool and Bancroft Road. I'm really genuinely excited about this, really looking forward to it. It might be, I don't know, is it going to be a bit chilly underneath there? It might be. I've got a jacket with me. First of all, I've got to go and buy a ticket.
around the back yes it is yeah so quite a few of these buildings obviously were obviously there as part of the original development and it's always intrigued us moving into pool house just what existed underneath it was fantastic to to learn a little bit more about the history so let's go and have a little wander down around the back and we will uh we'll have a closer look we're coming around the back of ws planning and architecture spencer is opening up the gates
It's a good sound effect, isn't it? A squeaky gate. And then round the back, kind of separate from the main building, there's some white wooden doors in a kind of brick shelter. I see.
Yes. Right, you go first, Peter. Don't trip over the step.
The lights are coming on now, and there's a ramp down into the basement. Oh, nice.
So it's a long kind of spiral ramp. If you imagine kind of a mini ramp, as though you're coming out of the belfry. It's a little bit like that.
And along the side, you'll see the original hand rails, the concrete hand rails here for the actual pool itself. So this is the walk down into the pool. Well, this may have been added at a later date in order to be able to get out and use this as a storage area. But you can clearly see that this is the original sides of the pool. Just watch your step.
It's huge. I'm really surprised how much there is here.
Several different rooms that they created. So rather than filling in the entire basement and building on top, they built up the walls inside to allow for storage. And you'll see in here... Six foot nine on the side of the wall shows you the depth of the original pool.
And it's remarkably dry down here, ironically, isn't it?
It does have a pump. It does flood every now and then. We've got a stream at the back, so I guess it does hit the water table at some point. But no, it's an unusual space and not something that people get to see very often when you cover up the old... buildings in town.
Reigate, it did have a swimming bath, of course, up top of Tunnell Road, you know, just opposite the council buildings. But this was something rather different, more of a Lido.
One of the central rooms now, again, you can see that original wall that they, you know, it would have been a large space to actually fill in this void. So they obviously just realised that it's more, probably more cost effective to build the internal walls and retain most of that original structure.
It's slightly difficult to determine which direction we're looking at. One's rather lost one's sense of direction. We've come down from there. Now, that's probably south. This must be the western end of the pool here. You can see here that this angle suggests that it ran slightly from northeast to southwest.
Yes.
And they had a little shop here too. Jack used to sell drinks and... Afternoon teas as well. Afternoon teas, that's right. Yes.
But it also... I think they may have used it as a firing range. So we can hear the offices above. Yes, absolutely, yeah. Yeah, we'd better not linger too long down here, otherwise... Keep talking so I don't pick up their conversation. No, no, no. But it's been used for a mix of different uses down here over time, and like I say, it's always intrigued us ever since we came in.
Of course, we're kind of underwater now, aren't we, as we stand, as it were. Yes. But also in the grounds, there would have been that tea shop, there would have been perhaps changing rooms, toilet facilities.
There were changing rooms. Small. Still there.
So all the buildings on the periphery are those original, and they're shown in those photographs that you shared with us. Right. So the changing rooms are now converted into store buildings, which is, again, another bit of history that's still there, but really, to those who wander by, wouldn't really understand what was there before.
As far as one understands it, during the war it was closed, and then it reopened after the war, and it rather staggered along with it. And it had a slightly, amongst the... It had a rather strange reputation. Those who loved it and those who thought it was a terribly dirty place and wouldn't allow their children to swim there.
I met several people when I was doing work on it who'd been told, they've grown up now in fact at my age, and were saying, you know, we weren't allowed to come here.
And I understand also that it was quite shaded, wasn't it, which may have been nice in the summer, but also could have been cold, it could have been chilly.
Yeah, the eastern end, there were certainly quite a lot of trees hanging over it.
Yeah, and leaf and mulch and so on perhaps going into the water. How many people would have perhaps come? How many people would be able to kind of fit in, if you like?
I don't know, and I can't tell you exactly what the season was. Probably a little bit more exploration in the same era. You'd be able to discover that.
And was this open at the same time as the other one which would have been opposite the council buildings?
Yes, yes. That was definitely so.
So that was inside, but this was outside?
That was inside. This was the only outdoor pool, and that was the thing in the summer. It was just so nice to come and swim your lengths or just sit down. I think quite a lot of people probably never swam here, just lay on one of their loungers and got brown.
And do we know what kind of drawer it was for the area? I mean, was it just people from Reigate and Redhill coming or were people coming down from perhaps further afield?
I don't from any great distance. I think mostly local people and quite young people, I would think. Certainly the one person who I'm very close to and who used to come here when she was a girl describes it as somewhere she went in her lunch hour. So I don't think it was very expensive to bathe here. And it was quite pleasant and they apparently were allowed to bring their sandwiches.
This was the whole idea of the Bancrofts, wasn't it? But was it as part of a drive to get people into the new cinema, which opened a few months later?
I think that was right. They wanted a little bit of a leisure centre. And also, I think on the back of what they were offering here, it was an encouragement to the local council to grant them the right to... do the work they had to do. And this road that had to go in, Bancroft Road, didn't go through without quite a few problems.
There was one very old house which they pulled down, which was, in its day, quite frequently photographed, dating back to Elizabethan times, Cottage. And so local people were not totally in favour of it.
OK, and it didn't last that long, did it, actually?
No, no.
It seemed to be a bit of a white elephant...
Yes, I think the chap who had it didn't run it very well. And he had other cafes in Ryegate and in Redhill. And this was probably because it was just seasonal. Didn't do him a lot of good. Early 50s, it was gone. Tried to sell it. and wasn't successful. And when it says sell it, I'm not sure who actually owned the land.
I assume the Bancrofts did still, but that may not have been the case, because they partly sold out to Shipman and King, who were a large distributor of films, and they had cinemas all over Sussex and just a few in Surrey.
This is intriguing, it really is. What do you make of it? You've written about it, you know an awful lot about local history, and yet this is the first time you've been down here.
Yes, yes. It is really quite a sight to see. It's certainly something that has not been explored. I think in a way it's almost too recent. We used to have a very good column in the local paper called At the Crossroads, and an old boy wrote this. And he'd wrote about almost every aspect, but he never ever wrote about... as far as I can find. I've read most of his columns.
Never wrote ever about the swimming pool, which is really odd.
I've done quite a bit of research as well. I tried to do a bit of research, but yes, there's not much online. I remember speaking to Spencer and he mentioned this. What were your thoughts when you moved into Paul House? I don't know, are you a local kind of boy stroke man? Not necessarily. You didn't grow up with the store?
I moved into Reigate and started working for Brian 25 years ago, but we didn't move in until sort of three or so years ago here. And obviously we're shown down here and thought it was incredible when we saw it really, to be honest, it's quite unusual. And everyone wondered why Paul House or why the name. And obviously that just sort of put two and two together, really. It was a nice revelation.
And again, followed up with the email from you as well, which provided some of those photographs as well. So we've got a nice little bit of history collected. Well, there you go. Well, again, it's just a little bit.
And out we come. This is, yeah, incredible. So, Sean, finally, you're beginning to get a bit of perspective of where the wall kind of swooped around and where people would come down and so on.
It still surprises me slightly, this part of it, this ramp down into it. And I'm just wondering if this is later and that this is the edge of the pool here. there would have been no reason for a ramp like this. I think that's the base, obviously here, for the original swimming pool. So all this is additional, I think.
Yes, yes, it would have come in afterwards.
Yes. Anyway, great. Thank you very much indeed. I do like this.
This handwrite, yeah.
Perfect. So these were original... These were original buildings on the outside, so you can see the entrances here.
So we're just coming round the building and there's a slight raised up bit, so now we can get a better perspective.
The sense of the curve here of the building that was built around the edge of the pool would have gone in that direction. some way, under the building, possibly under the road as well.
And you're thinking that this building to the right and another one to the left may have been toilets or changing rooms or a tea room or something like that?
They were certainly in the photographs of that that we've got on file.
This could have been the little cafe, just possibly in here.
Yes, at an angle.
It certainly did have little changing rooms and I think it ran around here, this western end.
So you're getting a really good kind of perspective of the layout here, Sean, and the direction and how it would have sat in relation to Bancroft Road and also the cinema over there.
And also, of course, Rygate Garage, which was immediately here. Their workshops were here.
But that wouldn't have been conducive, would it, if they were there at the same time as the pool for people relaxing?
I don't know. I don't know how noisy it would have been particularly. It might get a bit smelly with the petrol. They sold petrol there.
And, of course, Pencroff Road would not have been busy back in the day, would it? No.
Well, yes, I think it began to be. It was a kind of bypass for the town. And, of course, you could go round Bancroft Road and then back up Bell Street, or you could come down Bell Street into Bancroft Road. It was quite an interesting little way round the town still, but it serves a different purpose.
And Spencer, back to you with WS Planning and Architecture. This is interesting for you to be on a site which has its own kind of history and architecture as well.
Yeah, it certainly does. We are really proud to be based in Reigate. And funnily enough, our other offshoot in Croydon is in number one Croydon, which is an iconic, known as the 50 pence piece building next to East Croydon Station. So being an architectural, planning an architectural practice in these buildings really does
provide a little bit of inspiration and certainly the heritage as well, looking at the history, looking at the way the town was shaped before we arrived and how it moves forward is always interesting.
And it's interesting, isn't it, that you're continuing with that practice of evolving history and being involved with some of the local buildings and some of the historic local companies, trying to keep some of the old but also moving them into the future as well. I'm thinking perhaps of Pilgrim Brewery and so on.
Yeah, absolutely. We've really enjoyed working on the Pilgrim Brewery application. Again, it is part of that evolution. We've worked on hundreds, possibly thousands of applications in the last 25, 32 years, actually, that the company has been in operation in Reigate.
So, again, that gives us a unique perspective of how the town has changed over that time and how best to obviously help our clients succeed with their planning applications.
And, Sean, it's kind of heartbreaking, isn't it, that when you look around, so much of Rygate has changed. I'm thinking of the other side of the road where the majestic cinema once was, and now, actually, the everyman is not aesthetically pleasing, is it? But there again, we don't want to live in a museum, do we?
It's still a cinema, and it still offers something that a lot of towns have lost completely. I mean, yes, Rygate has changed, but... I know many other towns, my hometown Yeovil and Somerset, you can hardly recognise it. Everything's demolished that ever was worth preserving. The only things that survive are things that are absolutely hideous. Reigate has at least been saved from that.
And that's a wonderful thing, I think.
Reigate and Banstead have a fantastic economic prosperity team. They are open to ideas, and they do want to see the best for the town and for the borough, to be honest. And obviously putting the best case forward is always going to help your applications, but the council are forward-thinking. They do want to see positive change, and again, that's why we've prospered so long in Reigate Town Centre.
Spencer Kip, back to his planning and back to his architecture.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Was the road actually put in with it next door, or did the road come after?
No, the road was more or less constructed at the time that the pool was constructed. And the car park, which was behind the cinema, was actually a land that was acquired by the council. But there was an agreement. Because Bancroft had bought this land... It was agreed that users of the cinema could park their cars here free of charge.
They didn't have the system that we have today of charging anyway. It just was very fortunate that the council in a way welcomed, which they might well have said, well, we've got one cinema already, although it was rather old-fashioned by that stage. It was known as the Flea Pit. the Hippodrome, but it did have its clientele. People did like it.
But the Majestic, of course, had its own great theatre organ. It was very much Art Deco style. It was exactly of the period. Lots of chrome and ocean liner windows. Of course, I remember it well, of course, as a kid. Great. Thank you very much.
We can let you get on. Thank you. All the best. Thank you so much.
Cheers. Bye-bye. So, Sean, while I've got you and we're standing opposite where the majestic cinema was, so just clarify for us, we had two cinemas right next to each other.
Not quite next to each other. Before Bancroft Road came into being, there were two, if not three, shops where Bancroft Road enters Bell Street. Very old buildings, I'm sure, today. They would not have been allowed to be pulled down. Then there were... two other businesses, and the Hippodrome was just a little bit further north in Bell Street, on the right-hand side, the eastern side.
And that occupied land back probably about 100, 150 yards back. And so when he... Because cinemas have to be quite deep, don't they? Yes, they have to be deep. And he was able to acquire this land for... relatively small amount of money.
So how far back would the Majestic come?
Would it be on the same kind of footprint as the... Majestic went back to just about where this office is now. So the furthest development in Bank Off Road here is where the cinema reached. There was an emergency exit just beyond... the entrance to the car park under this building, Bancroft Place.
And you remember the cinema? You remember both of them, do you?
Oh, yes, yes, yes. I remember the Hippodrome. It was quite amusing. It had very much sort of second-string films, but it had a lot of the Hammer House of horror and that sort of thing. And when I was young, I quite liked occasionally to go and see that. But I suppose when most often went for the more important feature films were The Majestic. Mrs Bancroft died before The Majestic was complete.
Indeed, I think she'd lived to see the foundation stones laid. And her husband, although he had financial interests in it, he had quite a few cinemas up in the East Midlands and he spent most of his time there. He always kept a flat here all his life. His wife seems to have been in his thoughts.
Every year he had a memoriam piece put in the local paper and apparently his loss was really heartfelt all his life.
And yet it seems strange to me that as she was operating the Hippodrome, he was operating his businesses in East Anglia, and yet they were supposed to be so much in love. And to travel from here to East Anglia would have been quite a job.
I mean, they must have met. Maybe they met halfway somewhere. I've no idea. I mean, but maybe the romance was not quite so heated in their later years. And certainly she was... quite ill for the last year or so of her life.
And yet before that, she seems a very... Not formidable, not so much capable. Well, she was a capable woman. She was a strong woman. A strong woman. She had lots of strings to her bow. She was a performer. She was a comedian.
They had quite a hard carapace. You had to. You couldn't survive in that environment. But she was obviously a very good businesswoman. And he trusted her. It's an unusual relationship. As far as I know, it was his only really second solid relationship. The first relationship was with his sister.
And when she decided to marry and retire and have a child, then he joined up with this lady that he'd been seeing around the musicals. And that relationship seemed to have satisfied him.
We don't know much about their career, do we, on the music hall? I've tried to do a bit of research and there's not much about what their act was, what they did, apart from that they did perform in pantomime. They were a musical kind of comedy act.
If you read some of the stage newspapers, which are online now, there is quite a bit about her. She, of course, had made her name as a lady with a good pair of legs who could look well in a pair of tights, particularly at pantomime time and so on. This was quite scandalous in the 20s and 30s.
Yes, and she appeared on Cigarette Card, which was a popular picture gallery of the times, one of the very first picture card producers of a firm called Ogham's, and it's the only photograph I've seen of her in her less-dressed attire. LAUGHTER And later on, she was very keen, when they had this cinema in Reigate after 1916, she invited acts here to come and perform on the stage of the cinema.
And they also had choirs and bands, and at Christmas, a variety performance. So it was, in a way, as well as a cinema, it was also a music hall itself.
And she was probably giving work to some of her friends from previous years, who perhaps may be falling on hard times because of the cinema revolution.
But I think she probably had a good eye for an act, which would make money for them. In the Majestic, they used to have, Christmas time, they'd have a band and choirs come and sing. So it wasn't entirely, even then, with this Art Deco cinema, she was also having live performances. occasions with live acts, effectively. Quite interesting that that survived.
How long it's like, I think even in the wartime, she had some acts, some comedians as well.
It's ironic, isn't it? Because, of course, now, 2024, Reichenbaum said, could do with having a theatre. Especially at Christmas, for live acts and so on. But that aside, tell me about then what the legacy of the Bancrofts is. Well, first of all, they didn't have children, did they? So what became of the Bancroft name and the estate and the property that they owned? Do we know?
I don't know. I did get in contact with... a nephew who was an academic. I don't think he knew anything about what had happened to the Bancroft fortune, if indeed there was a substantial one left, but she had been a very keen member of the Catholic Church, and when the new church was built in Reigate in the 30s, Quite a lot of money, it was just after she died, was given in her memory.
And I think her husband continued to support the church in all sorts of ways. And he gave an organ to the church, and I think they have a baptistry there, which was also paid for by him. So this, I think, also does show the measure of his love of his wife, that he...
And it's funny now, isn't it, that the name Bancroft is kind of known. Everyone knows Bancroft Road and everyone perhaps is aware of Pool House and the car park and so on. And Bancroft Close is a new road here as well. People don't know, until now perhaps, so much about the actual family that gave their name to this area.
No, and I don't know, even locally, although they used the name in their relationship as Bancroft, until the mid-30s, their name was still, his name was still Abelhans, his son's name.
Do we know where he got the name Bancroft from, why he chose that name?
No, nobody knows. Well, of course, there was Squire Bancroft, the great, great late 19th-century actor, very much in the sort of Henry Irving mould. He was always called Squire Bancroft, and he was actually, I think, knighted, like Sir Henry Irving. So, yes, possibly that. So he was a sort of musical Squire Bancroft, thought of himself that way.
Finally, Sean, give us your idea of what the Bancrofts, of what Harry and Emmy did for the area. I think you liken them to kind of entrepreneurs and setting up the first leisure centre in the town.
Yes, they were that. I mean, one can't ignore the fact that they would have seen a financial result, which they would hope would have been to their advantage, but of course wouldn't envisage the war. Certainly when the project began, they didn't envisage that she would die before it was finished.
So it may well have been that Harry Bancroft, after her death, though he did come to write it, we know this, he kept this flat, he didn't come that often, I suspect. So his heart wasn't here. It ended really with his wife's death, which is why Poole House, this whole project, was something I think they'd thought up together.
And sadly, apart from the road and the fact that there is a cinema on the site, that's really all that we have to record them, which is why it's important the work you do and other people do is to keep the name alive and explain why the road is called Bancroft Road. This is why I started to investigate it years ago.
And our thanks to Sean Hawkins, who you heard there, for his help with the original research that led to our miniseries, which was broadcast on the Planet Reigate podcast in December and January 2024-2025. And also our thanks to Spencer Copping from WS Planning and Architecture, who gave us that special access.
to what is left of the Bancroft Road swimming pool, or Lido, on Bancroft Road, which is underneath his offices, the appropriately named Pool House. I'm Peter Stewart. Thank you so much indeed for listening to our combination of episodes telling the full story. of Bancroft Road.
You'll be alerted to episodes as soon as they appear and also special hot links that will take you to specific parts of the episode if you're short for time. I'm Peter Stewart. I hope I have the loan of your ears very soon for the Planet Reigate podcast.
This is the Planet Reigate podcast with Peter Stewart.