Mecca Bingo will close its Taunton hall on Sunday 7th June, ending 45 years of use as a bingo venue in a Grade-II listed town-centre building that once drew crowds as a theatre and cinema.
The closure lands now because regulars have been told the venue is shutting this weekend, and for people like Cherril Hurding it brings an end to a familiar place that still fills up. Hurding said it was "quite sad actually", adding that there are always lots of people in the hall and that the staff are lovely. "I think it's the sign of the times," she said.
The building opened as the Gaumont Palace Theatre in 1932, hosted bands including The Beatles, Queen and The Rolling Stones in the 1960s, and was later transformed into an Odeon Cinema in the 1970s before becoming a bingo hall around 45 years ago. Mecca Bingo said the venue has been part of the local community for more than 40 years and that maintenance costs had made it difficult to continue. It said the site needs considerable repairs and that the end of its lease was imminent, which is why it had made the decision to close Mecca Taunton on Sunday 7th June.
That account does not sit neatly with what Somerset Council has said. The council said it understood the lease did not expire until 2028 and said it would continue to collect rent, while the tenant would still need to meet repairing obligations until the end of the lease term. That leaves the future of the listed building unresolved even as the bingo hall prepares to go dark.
For now, the immediate change is clear: Taunton loses a long-running town-centre venue this weekend, and the question after Sunday is not whether the doors close, but what happens to a building that has already lived several lives and now needs substantial work before it can have another.
