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Strolling down Essex Road, you're in for an unexpected visual treat. It may be boarded up and flanked by chicken shops, but with its delightfully theatrical façade, this grade 2* listed building still turns heads.
The building first opened to the public as 'Carlton Cinema' in 1930. You can see how it originally looked here. In its most recent guise, a Mecca Bingo hall, the space resounded with shouts of 'two fat ladies' and 'rise and shine'. But since closing in 2007, it has been left to rot.
A proposal last year to redevelop the bingo hall as flats, a place of religious worship, a private theatre, private cinemas and a banqueting hall, was successfully blocked by the community, who argued - quite rightly in my view - that it wouldn't serve their needs.
For now, like Wilton's Music Hall in Hoxton, which just lost a Lottery bid for desperately needed restructuring work, the future of the Essex Road bingo hall remains unclear.
Check out the treasure trove of a blog, Derelict London, for more examples of the capital's decaying architecture.
